By 

John  Bascom 

Author  of  "Social  Theory,"    "Growth  of  Nationality    in   the 

United  States,"  "An  Historical  Interpretation 

of  Philosophy,"  etc. 


G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

New  York  and  London 

Cbe    fmicfcerbocfcer    press 

1913 


COPYRIGHT,  1913 

BY 
F.  BASCOM 


Tlbc  •Knickerbocker  prew,  «ew  JJorfe 


SRLF 
URL 


5144145 


PREFACE 

""THIS  brief  volume  is  so  far  of  the  nature  of  per- 
sonal memorabilia,  that  I  do  not  care  to 
introduce  it  to  the  public  except  through  an  obvi- 
ously open  door.  I  leave  it,  therefore,  to  others  to 
give  or  withhold  as  circumstances  may  make  way 
for  it.  Clinging  to  my  convictions  with  that  te- 
nacity which  belongs  to  every  healthy  mind,  I  do 
not  doubt  that  there  are  many  truths  in  my  pub- 
lished works  of  which  the  world  is  finding  or  will 
find,  the  need.  I  am  by  no  means  as  certain, 
however,  that  these  principles  will  be  consciously 
derived  from  this  source.  The  truths  themselves 
lie  on  the  horizon  of  many  minds,  and  are  ready  to 
find  entrance,  sooner  or  later,  at  many  points.  So 
far  as  my  writings  shall  contribute  to  this  result, 
they  are  as  likely  to  do  it  indirectly,  through  the 
medium  of  more  persuasive  presentations,  as  di- 
rectly, by  their  own  force.  If  no  wide  interest 
shall  attach  to  the  work  already  done,  then  these 
further  and  more  individual  experiences  would 
make  their  way  with  difficulty  and  impropriety. 


iv  Preface 

They  may,  in  that  case,  as  well  be  added  to  those 
dreamy  reminiscences  and  speculative  visions 
which  furnish  the  familiar  occupants  of  the  spiri- 
tual and  secluded  household  of  a  single  man. 
It  is  enough  to  have  lived  by  means  of  them, 
though  the  record  of  life,  like  the  impressions  of 
most  lives,  be  left  under  the  lock  and  key  of  actual 
events,  and  miss  that  reflection  in  words  we  so 
often  prize  more  highly  than  the  thing  itself.  If, 
however,  any  principle  of  philosophy,  any  law  of 
action,  shall  have  gained  clear  impulse  by  my 
efforts,  then  these  acquisitions  of  experience,  these 
lessons  in  the  school  of  life,  dropping  their  purely 
personal  significance,  may  enter  on  a  somewhat 
wider  service  than  that  which  they  have  already 
accomplished.  Such  a  sketch  may  aid  those  in- 
terested in  it  in  a  more  deft  and  pleasurable  hand- 
ling of  their  own  powers,  and,  like  a  working  plan 
in  architecture,  yield  all  the  more  to  the  mind  be- 
cause they  yield  so  little  to  the  eye. 

J.  B. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    EVENTS      ...  i 

II.    HEALTH     ...  -75 

III.  RECREATIONS      ...  -87 

IV.  PERSONS    ...  98 
V.    FORMS  OF  WORK        .         .  -     136 

VI.    WRITINGS  .                           .  •     155 

VII.    THE  FORMULA  OF  PERSONAL  LIFE       .     182 

VIII.    THE  FORMULA  OF  SOCIAL  LIFE  .  .     194 

IX.    RELIGION  ....  .202 

A   PARTIAL   LIST   OF    ADDRESSES   AND 
PUBLISHED    WRITINGS    BY    JOHN 

BASCOM                                  .  .212 


INTRODUCTION 

FJOPULAR  interest  in  biography  arises  chiefly 
*  from  the  fascination  of  stirring  events.  This 
is  the  pleasure  of  the  senses,  the  pleasure  of  boys, 
the  pleasure  of  men  still  in  possession  of  their  boy- 
ish estate  of  lively  sensibilities.  No  biographies 
are  worth  writing  on  this  basis  whose  heroes  have 
not  considerably  overpassed  the  familiar  bounds 
of  action,  either  in  the  variety  or  intensity  or  im- 
portance of  the  events  narrated.  A  more  thought- 
ful interest  attaches  to  biography  as  a  personal 
experience,  a  spiritual  picture,  a  rendering  of  a 
nobler  phase  of  life  in  its  intellectually  significant 
features.  The  reflective  satisfaction  which  man 
takes  in  man,  his  delight  in  any  enlargement  of 
the  area  of  human  activity  as  a  part  of  his  own 
possessions,  are  appealed  to,  when  he  is  made  par- 
taker in  new  and  vigorous  experiences.  Here, 
however,  the  interesting  biography  must  be  the 
record  of  one  of  unusual  force  and  freshness  of 
life.  It  must  give,  in  some  direction,  a  positive 

expansion  to  our  intellectual  outlook. 

vii 


viii  Introduction 

There  is,  I  think,  another  set  of  lessons  worth 
bestowing,  though  without  the  fascination  of 
thrilling  events,  or  without  the  light  of  rare  powers. 
They  are  those  of  a  life  ordinary  in  its  outward 
form,  but  thoughtfully  built  up  in  its  inner  sub- 
stance. The  things  learned  by  me  in  living  are 
of  this  order.  They  derive  this  value  from  the 
analytical  character  of  my  life,  and  must  appeal 
for  sympathy  to  those  who  are  exercising  a  like 
close  scrutiny  of  the  spiritual  terms  of  being. 

My  life  has  been  unusually  rational.  This  as- 
sertion does  not  imply  that  it  has  escaped  errors 
and  failures  and  faults ;  it  means  that  the  habit  has 
been  cultivated  with  great  constancy  of  raising 
the  intellectual  and  social  questions  incident  to 
the  progress  of  events,  and  giving  them  as  definite 
and  just  an  answer  as  possible.  A  doubt  in  be- 
lief or  a  difficulty  in  conduct  has  always  been  a 
very  nettlesome  term  in  my  inner  life,  till  the 
ground  of  that  doubt,  or  the  measure  of  that  diffi- 
culty, had  been  clearly  disclosed.  My  mind,  of 
native  tendency  and  confirmed  purpose,  has  been 
an  untiring  critic  of  its  own  processes,  and  the 
processes  of  the  spiritual  world  about  it.  Unless 
criticism  extends  to  the  very  circumference  of  our 
experience,  it  cannot  long  retain  its  insight  at  the 
center.  This  is  the  reason  why  I  think  it  may  be 


Introduction  ix 

worth  while  to  make  a  presentation  of  the  things 
learned  in  living.  They  have  been  thoughtfully 
acquired,  and  may,  therefore,  quicken  thought 
in  others. 

That  this  assertion  of  rationality  may  be  as 
significant  as  it  ought  to  be,  the  scope  of  reason 
itself  must  be  apprehended.  It  stands  for  the  col- 
lective action  of  all  the  powers  of  knowing,  that 
wide  gathering  of  facts  and  search  into  their  re- 
lations which  become  unto  us  wisdom.  The  wealth 
of  wisdom  cannot  be  won  otherwise  than  by  the 
combined  action  of  our  thoughtful,  emotional,  and 
executive  powers.  This  is  especially  true  in  the 
region  of  social  and  spiritual  inquiry.  As  the 
facts  of  the  physical  world  disclose  themselves  in 
color  and  sound,  in  a  panorama  rich  to  the  eye, 
and  a  rehearsal  seductive  to  the  ear,  so  the  truths 
of  spiritual  life  uncover  themselves  in  a  great  di- 
versity of  feelings,  and  can  only  be  arrived  at  by 
one  whose  emotions  respond  quickly,  by  one  whose 
insight  is  immediate,  and  whose  soul  is  mobile 
under  the  spiritual  movement  of  the  word.  One 
misses  the  truth  as  frequently  by  lacking  the  sen- 
sibilities which  reflect  the  facts  which  contain  it, 
as  by  wanting  the  wit  to  analyze  those  facts. 

Results  in  knowledge  must  depend,  therefore, 
very  much  on  character  and  conduct.     Action,  and 


x  Introduction 

action  only,  carries  us  fully  to  the  moral  centers  of 
life,  the  marts  at  which  living  experiences  are  in- 
terchanged. Action  alone  makes  us  deeply  inter- 
ested partakers  in  the  traffic  of  ideas  that  are 
to  be  put  to  the  instant  test  of  use  in  our  daily 
undertakings.  A  life,  therefore,  that  is  struggling 
to  be  rational,  is  also  striving  to  extend  itself  to 
the  full  limits  of  its  capacity,  as  an  essential  con- 
dition of  that  immediate  and  vivid  rendering  of 
truth  which  is  alone  wisdom.  However  much 
there  may  be  of  reflection  in  reason,  there  is  equally 
much  of  action  in  it ;  especially  in  its  higher,  more 
spiritual,  range.  The  mirror  we  hold  up  to  the 
spiritual  world  wherein  we  discover  and  trace  the 
least  suggestion  of  change,  is  that  of  the  emotions, 
and  the  emotions,  like  a  lake  that  lies  between  a 
river,  on  the  one  hand,  and  its  fountains,  on  the 
other,  is  kept  pure  by  the  inflow  of  thought  and  the 
outflow  of  action.  A  purified  heart  is  the  great 
organ  of  correct  opinion  in  the  spiritual  world. 

Reason  is  equally  opposed  to  dogma  and  to  mys- 
ticism. Dogmatism  is  insisting  on  final  statements 
of  a  truth,  which  escapes  exact  measurement ;  mys- 
ticism is  the  loss  of  truth,  save  as  emotional  im- 
pression, in  the  obscurity  which  surrounds  it.  The 
dogmatic  statement  has  no  photosphere,  the  mys- 
tic statement  loses  its  very  center  in  a  diffused, 


Introduction  xi 

luminous  vapor.  Reason  is  impatient  alike  of 
absolute  definition  and  no  definition,  of  dogma- 
tism and  mysticism,  as  giving  the  one  too  much, 
and  the  other  too  little,  for  growth ;  as  impoverish- 
ing the  mind  either  by  taking  from  it  its  proper 
work  of  enlarging  inquiry,  or  making  that  work 
futile  by  impalpable  results.  Reason  loves  to  tent 
itself  in  the  fruitful  fields  of  thought,  waiting  on 
all  the  progress  of  the  spiritual  seasons  for  a  grow- 
ing revelation  of  the  productive  powers  in  the 
world  of  ideas.  And  these  fruitful  fields  are  those 
of  things,  events,  actions. 

While  all  men  have  access  to  reason,  and  are 
more  or  less  ruled  by  it,  few  commit  themselves  to 
it  with  childlike  trustfulness  and  manly  strength. 
The  tractable  temper  has  been  enforced  upon  them 
especially  by  religionists,  but  it  has  been  forgotten 
that  the  reasonable  temper  lies  deeper  than  the 
teachable  one;  and  that  instruction  which  is  not 
addressed  to  an  earnest  spirit  of  inquiry  can  do 
very  little  to  awaken  the  mind,  strengthen  the 
spirit,  and  give  inner  terms  of  manhood.  One 
must,  indeed,  be  taught,  but  his  instruction  con- 
sists far  more  in  the  quiet  digestion  of  the  truth 
than  in  its  docile  reception.  To  unite  perfectly 
the  inner  force  of  truth  to  its  outer  form  is  the 
highest  attainment  in  living  as  a  fine  art.  The 


xii  Introduction 

mistake  which  man  is  constantly  making  in  pursu- 
ing this  art — an  error  which  vexes  all  art — is  a  cold 
inculcation  of  rules;  a  showy,  spectacular  pro- 
cession of  actions  which  contain  within  themselves 
but  little  of  the  ripeness  of  wisdom  and  love. 

It  is  neither  kindly  nor  correct  to  bring  a  railing 
accusation  against  men.  The  collective  growth  of 
society  is  such,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  as  to 
obscure,  to  confuse,  and  for  long  periods  to  inter- 
rupt, the  action  of  reason.  The  mind  of  man  is 
only  in  the  process  of  clarification,  and  where 
action  is  the  most  rapid  the  waters  are  most  turbid. 

Society,  well  ordered  and  perfect,  will  be  lumin- 
ous through  and  through.  It  will  receive  and 
transmit  wisdom  in  its  habitual  pulsations  of 
thought,  as  a  transparent  body  passes  on  the  light. 
The  complete  lens  is  homogeneous,  both  in  the 
interfusion  of  material  and  in  its  congelation.  It 
is  able  to  receive  and  to  redirect  the  light  with  no 
disturbance  of  it  within  itself.  Society  is  the 
proper  medium  of  reason,  with  its  pure  vision  and 
its  infinite  play  of  colors;  but  society  is  the  most 
composite  possible  product  of  physical  and  of 
spiritual  things,  of  error  and  truth,  of  unfit  and  fit 
feelings,  perverted  and  corrected  impulses.  Light, 
the  light  of  reason,  though  always  at  work  on  the 
cloudy  and  opaque  mass,  does  not  penetrate  it 


Introduction  xiii 

deeply,  or  rearrange  it  rapidly  in  obedience  to  its 
own  divine  energies. 

The  interlacing  of  the  organic  with  the  spiritual, 
the"unconscious  with  the  conscious,  of  actions  with 
ideas,  while  it  defines  and  holds  firm  this  move- 
ment, greatly  delays  it,  and,  for  the  moment, 
obscures  it.  Reason  is  always  laying  down  a  de- 
posit of  new  adaptations  in  the  bodies  of  men,  in 
their  economic  and  social  relations,  and  in  those 
spontaneous  feelings  which  supply  the  ordinary, 
automatic  working  forces  of  life.  Some  are  willing 
to  look  to  the  "social  tissue"  as  the  seat  of  the 
moral  energies  of  society.  It  is  rather  that  on 
which  the  moral  force  expends  itself,  that  with 
which  it  is  on  terms  of  constant  contention  as  still 
the  realm  of  unreason  among  men,  the  opaque 
material  whose  opacity  is  to  be  driven  from  it  by 
the  growing  heat  and  light  of  truth.  It  is  just  in 
this  region  of  contention,  the  region  of  the  false  and 
the  true,  the  partial  and  the  complete,  of  com- 
mingled darkness  and  light,  that  the  moral  impulse 
is  fulfilled,  and  moral  victories  achieved.  Pene- 
tration, devotion,  skill  are  all  occupied  in  carrying 
construction  into  every  portion  of  the  social  realm ; 
a  law  of  life  into  the  material  of  life. 

The  real  power  of  religion  lies  just  here.  It 
should  give  us  ideas  clear  enough,  vigorous  enough, 


xiv  Introduction 

broad  enough,  to  pierce  with  electric  energy  this 
region  of  chaotic  and  creative  strife,  both  for  ends 
of  revelation  and  reformation,  both  for  disclosing 
what  is  and  what,  in  the  infinite  reach  of  the  divine 
mind,  ought  to  be.  Religious  ideas  are  the  true 
solvents  of  social  questions,  simply  because  these 
ideas  penetrate  to  the  deepest  foundations  of  moral 
order  in  the  universe,  are  the  inner  light  of  laws  as 
they  work  their  way  luminously  through  all  the 
spiritual  material  with  which  we  have  to  deal. 

Reason  is  put  to  comparatively  little  strain  ex- 
cept in  this  social,  religious  field,  where  it  encoun- 
ters all  the  warping  powers  of  the  past,  the  blind 
inertia  and  blind  momentum  of  the  present,  full  of 
tremendous  energies  only  partially  subjected  to  it- 
self. What  a  man  learns  in  society  is  what  he 
learns  in  the  spiritual  world.  When  a  man  brings 
conviction  to  the  fiery  ordeal  of  experience,  he  will 
find  his  mind  productive  in  thought,  his  heart 
fruitful  of  feeling,  and  his  head  full  of  work.  Here 
theory  and  fact,  force  and  form,  divine  impulse  and 
human  inertia,  are  at  play  in  that  wonderful  work- 
shop in  which  the  reason  of  man,  the  reason  of  God, 
master  the  material  world,  and  make  of  it  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven. 

Here  is  an  empiricism  we  can  never  dispense 
with.  It  is  not  an  empiricism  which  allows  the 


Introduction  xv 

meaning  of  things  to  drop  out  of  them,  the  kernel 
to  escape  us  and  leave  nothing  but  the  shell,  but 
one  that,  reversing  this  tendency,  struggles  to 
find  the  divine  idea  in  the  events,  to  unite  them  in 
new  and  higher  harmonies,  and  to  carry  perfectly 
forward  the  creative  energy.  This  is  the  high, 
unfailing  act  of  holiness.  Whatever  I  have  learned 
in  life,  has  been  along  this  line;  and  though  the 
flashes  of  light  may  be  inconsiderable,  the  darkness 
yet  lies  so  heavily  upon  us  as  to  leave  them  not  al- 
together inconspicuous.  For  this  reason  and  no 
other  should  I  venture  to  speak  of  the  things 
learned  by  living.  A  life  that  in  any  good  degree 
rests  on  a  rational  basis,  has  an  interest,  not  be- 
cause of  unusual  events  or  unusual  powers,  but 
because  of  usual  events  and  usual  powers;  because 
it  touches  closely  the  very  problem  which  falls  to 
every  one  of  us  to  work  out,  the  ministration  of 
the  world  to  us  and  our  ministration  to  it — that 
evolution  within  us  and  without  us  by  which  the 
sun  of  righteousness  takes  position  in  the  center 
of  our  spiritual  system. 


Things  Learned  by  Living 


CHAPTER  I 

EVENTS 

PHE  events  out  of  which  my  experiences  have 
grown  have  been  very  simple,  and  will  justify 
but  the  briefest  mention.  I  was  born  in  Genoa, 
Cayuga  County,  New  York,  May  I,  1827.  Our 
house  was  on  the  old  stage  route  between  Ithaca 
and  Auburn  by  the  way  of  Lansingville.  It  was 
the  last  place  in  the  town  and  county  as  they  joined 
Tompkins  County  and  the  town  of  Lansing,  lying 
to  the  south.  A  small  frame  house  of  three  rooms 
and  an  attic,  with  twenty  acres  attached,  consti- 
tuted a  homestead  that  had  little  to  gratify  taste 
or  to  reward  labor.  A  scanty  subsistence  was  the 
most  it  promised,  or  that  we  were  able  to  secure. 
That  portion  of  the  State,  though  not  uninterest- 
ing, makes  no  very  strong  appeal  to  the  imagination 
of  a  child.  A  series  of  long  and  narrow  lakes  alter- 


2  Things  Learned  by  Living 

nate  with  broad  ridges  of  a  gently  swelling  outline. 
The  lakes  are  soon  lost  to  the  view,  as  one  recedes 
from  them,  and  the  landscape  takes  on  the  monot- 
ony of  a  comparatively  level  country.  There  is 
very  little  waste  land  left  to  the  loving  touch  of 
nature;  and  careless  husbandry  had,  in  my  youth, 
everywhere  despoiled  the  view  of  its  first  freshness 
without  bringing  to  it  the  beauty  of  adequate 
tillage.  There  are  forlorn  periods  in  the  history 
of  a  new  country  in  which  nature  has  been  lost  and 
art  certainly  has  not  been  found.  The  first  con- 
tact of  the  world  with  men  seems  to  bring  only  in- 
jury and  offence. 

By  far  the  most  striking  features  of  the  region  are 
its  narrow  ravines,  which  are  often  cut  to  a  great 
depth  by  the  descent  of  the  streams  to  the  lakes. 
Their  close  recesses,  hidden  by  the  foliage  of  the 
banks,  have  a  voice  and  presence  of  their  own  in 
delightful  cascades.  The  shores  of  the  upper 
Cayuga  and  Seneca  rise  rapidly,  and  the  creeks,  in 
reaching  the  level  of  the  lakes,  frequently  fall  into 
the  shadow  of  abrupt  banks  two,  three,  or  four 
hundred  feet  high.  These  spots  of  real  beauty 
and  unexpected  romance,  were  at  too  great  a 
distance  from  the  home  of  my  childhood  to  be 
visited  by  me.  The  only  view  that  our  house, 
five  miles  from  the  lake,  possessed,  was  that  of  the 


Events  3 

sloping  fields  that  descend  to  Salmon  Creek,  not 
bending  abruptly  until  they  nearly  reach  it.  This 
creek  has  been  a  factor  of  considerable  force,  in 
the  formation  of  the  country  and  the  slope  of  land 
for  many  miles  is  governed  by  it.  Our  home  was 
on  the  western  descent,  a  mile  from  the  creek,  and 
commanded  an  extensive  view  of  the  eastern 
decline. 

Though  I  have  always  been  very  susceptible  to 
every  appeal  of  nature,  I  can  hardly  say,  from 
any  testimony  of  memory,  that  this  broad  presen- 
tation of  checkered  field  and  forest  made  any  dis- 
tinct impression  on  me.  I  only  recollect  that  the 
final  rapid  descent  to  the  creek  and  its  deep  valley 
were  a  region  of  mystery  and  awe,  the  Ultima  Thule 
of  my  narrow  world.  The  immense  magnitude  of 
things  to  the  mind  of  the  child  is  the  most  signifi- 
cant fact  in  that  period  of  life,  and  one  most  readily 
and  unfortunately  forgotten  by  men  and  women 
in  their  treatment  of  children.  These  first  experi- 
ences are  made  up  of  strong  impressions  and  vivid 
feelings,  very  inadequately  measured  or  corrected 
by  thought.  They  occupy  the  entire  mind  with 
overshadowing  power,  and  they  can  only  be  lifted 
into  joy,  or  ordered  in  tranquil  pleasure,  by  virtue 
of  that  still  greater  potency  which  belongs  to  the 
living  presence  of  older  persons.  The  child  as 


4  Things  Learned  by  Living 

much  needs  shelter  from  its  own  conceptions  under 
the  quiet  correction  of  the  parent,  as  he  does  from 
physical  dangers  by  the  parent's  strong  hand. 
The  feelings  of  childhood  are  like  clouds  and  mists 
under  wind;  all  the  possibilities  of  speedy  change 
belong  to  them.  They  may  be  massed  at  once 
in  overwhelming  force,  or  may  be  scattered  into 
thin  air  by  invisible  causes. 

The  early  years  of  my  life  are  not  marked  in 
their  traces  on  memory  by  any  coherent  record  of 
events.  Simple  pictures,  here  and  there,  stamped 
with  strange  indelibility  on  the  imagination  for  no 
known  reason,  give  the  waymarks  of  the  journey. 
These  isolated  scraps  of  history,  with  no  significance 
in  themselves,  remain  like  traces  of  fern  leaves  on 
the  rock,  a  suggestive  though  accidental  record  of 
the  years  gone  by.  The  susceptibility  of  child- 
hood gives  a  clear-cut  impression,  and  some  favor- 
ing chance  repeats  it,  until  it  comes  to  be  our  last 
and  cherished  hold  on  the  things  which  are  other- 
wise lost. 

The  nine  years  that  I  spent  at  this  first  staging 
point  have  left  only  stray,  loose  leaves,  which  give 
no  history.  I  recall  the  winning  smile  of  one 
woman — let  me  preserve  her  name,  Henrietta 
Crocker — my  teacher  in  the  district  school,  and 
equally  distinctly  I  remember  standing  by  the 


Events  5 

hearth  of  the  clumsy,  old-fashioned  stove  while 
another  teacher — whose  name  I  let  perish — stiff- 
ened and  toughened  his  supple  whips  in  the  hot 
embers,  and  so  got  a  position  from  which  he  pro- 
posed to  struggle  with,  to  herd,  and  to  drive  upward 
the  teeming  moral  impulses  in  the  boy  world  to 
which  I  belonged.  His  well  meant  labors  were 
imperceptible. 

My  father  was  the  son  of  Rev.  Aaron  Bascom, 
a  minister  quite  of  the  old  Puritanic  type,  and  the 
center  of  social  and  religious  life  for  many  years 
in  the  town  of  Chester,  Massachusetts.  The  elms 
he  planted  still  flourish  in  front  of  the  old  parson- 
age, though  change  and  decay  have  passed  rapidly 
upon  all  the  families  and  social  conditions  with 
which  he  was  familiar.  Population,  flowing  valley- 
ward  and  westward  from  these  mountain  towns, 
has  left  them  melancholy  shadows  of  their  former 
selves.  Nature  is  taking  them  back  to  her  grand 
hospitable  arms.  Two  Samuel  Bascoms  of  Warren 
and  three  Thomas  Bascoms  of  Northampton,  bear 
the  race  back  to  1634,  when  the  older  Thomas  came 
over  from  England,  settling  first  in  Dorchester, 
and  later  in  Northampton.  The  professional  pre- 
dilection of  the  family  has  been  the  ministry ;  and 
a  staunch  Congregational  faith  has  belonged  to 
most  of  its  members. 


6  Things  Learned  by  Living 

My  father  and  two  of  his  brothers  were  educated 
at  Williams  College.  Graduating  at  Andover  Sem- 
inary, my  father  became  a  home  missionary,  first 
in  Pennsylvania,  and  afterward,  during  a  series  of 
years,  at  Lansingville.  The  old  church  in  which 
he  preached,  with  its  high  pulpit  and  lofty  galleries, 
was  to  me  a  very  solemn  and  impressive  monument 
of  ecclesiastical  art,  its  austere  presence  strength- 
ened by  that  imperiousness  of  duty  which  so  often 
overbore  the  comfort  of  my  childhood,  as,  hidden 
behind  the  backs  of  the  tall  pews,  I  sat  swinging 
my  short  legs  in  the  air.  This  religious  society, 
which  became  large  and  strong,  has  been  utterly 
scattered  again  between  new  centers  of  population. 
The  church  itself  has  long  since  .disappeared,  and 
pastor  and  parishioners  sleep  in  the  churchyard  in 
the  rear  of  the  old  site,  silent  sentinels  of  the  silent 
years  that  have  given  way  so  serenely  to  new  times, 
both  better  and  worse  than  they. 

My  father  died  in  1828,  at  the  early  age  of 
43  years.  There  is  no  trace  of  him,  even  the 
feeblest,  in  my  memory.  He  seems  to  have 
been  a  man  of  moderate  ability,  with  much 
warmth  of  feeling  and  signal  devotion  to  his  work. 
Persons  who  listened  to  his  preaching  spoke  ten- 
derly of  him  after  he  had  been  dead  many  years. 
He  was  more  than  once  compelled  to  spend  the 


Events  7 

winter  at  the  south.  On  one  of  these  trips  he  re- 
buked a  landlord,  with  whom  he  was  stopping, 
for  profanity.  He  did  it  so  gently  that  no  offense 
was  given.  The  landlord  the  next  morning  took 
him  to  the  stable,  showed  him  a  colt  of  great 
promise,  and  said  that  he  should  name  it,  in  recog- 
nition of  the  timely  reproof,  John  Bascom.  It 
became,  with  so  gracious  a  start,  a  famous  horse, 
and  won  many  a  hard  heat  in  the  frequent  contests 
between  the  north  and  the  south. 

My  mother  was  a  Woodbridge,  the  daughter  of 
Major  Theodore  Woodbridge,  who  served  during 
the  entire  war  of  the  Revolution.  The  Rev.  John 
Woodbridge  was  a  clergyman  at  Stanton,Wiltshire, 
England.  His  son,  also  the  Rev.  John  Wood- 
bridge,  came  to  America  in  1635,  and  founded  the 
family  in  this  country.  He  settled  in  Newbury, 
Massachusetts.  Cotton  Mather  bears  testimony 
to  the  father  that  he  was  "so  able  and  faithful  as 
to  obtain  high  esteem  among  those  that  at  all 
knew  the  invaluable  worth  of  such  a  minister." 
Thirty-eight  of  his  descendants  in  this  country 
followed  the  same  profession,  and  some  of  them 
have  attained  unusual  success  in  it.  The  Rev. 
Timothy  Woodbridge,  the  son  of  the  second  John 
Woodbridge,  settled  in  Hartford,  Connecticut. 
He  was  one  of  the  ten  "prominent  ministers  named 


8  Things  Learned  by  Living 

as  trustees  by  the  General  Assembly  of  Connecti- 
cut to  found  Yale  College."  Rev.  Ashbel  Wood- 
bridge,  son  of  Timothy  Woodbridge  and  father  of 
Major  Theodore  Woodbridge,  established  himself 
in  Glastonbury,  Connecticut.  Theodore  Wood- 
bridge,  after  the  close  of  the  Revolutionary  War, 
removed  to  northern  Pennsylvania,  at  that  time 
a  wild  region,  enclosed  in  the  savagery  of  unbroken 
forests. 

My  mother  was  called  by  her  marriage  to  meet 
a  life  of  deprivation  and  hardship.  A  salary  of 
four  hundred  dollars,  paid  irregularly  and  slowly, 
gave  narrow  footing  to  a  growing  household, pressed 
in  its  resources  by  the  ill  health  of  my  father. 
At  his  death,  this  income  disappearing,  it  became 
an  urgent  and  constant  question  how  four  children, 
ranging  from  one  to  twelve,  could  be  fed,  clothed, 
and  educated.  For  a  time  the  work  was  done 
somewhat  scantily.  Some  years  after  the  death 
of  my  father,  my  mother  received  two  or  three 
thousand  dollars  by  inheritance,  and  this  long 
remained  the  only  visible  kernel  of  our  fortune. 

My  mother  was  a  devout  woman,  with  a  rigid, 
conventional  creed.  She  fed  her  own  spiritual 
life  daily  on  Scott's  Commentaries.  The  orthodox 
commentator  magnifies  the  inspiration  of  the 
Bible,  and  easily  remains  himself  destitute  of  in- 


Events  9 

spiration.  A  supersensuous  faith  often  leaves  the 
mind,  in  its  contact  with  daily  events,  to  take 
things  much  as  others  take  them.  The  stream 
that  breaks  from  the  canyon  spreads  at  once,  in 
superficial  channels,  over  the  gravelly  plain.  There 
are  thus  sudden  shiftings,  not  to  say  incongruities 
of  character,  as  the  mind  passes  from  the  heavy 
shadow  of  religious  truth  into  very  commonplace 
and  shallow  social  experiences.  It  requires  very 
unusual  intellectual  and  spiritual  vigor  to  move 
backward  and  forward  across  this  dividing  line 
with  no  loss  of  fitness.  I  was  impressed  with  this 
fact  from  my  boyhood,  and  experienced  much 
difficulty  in  understanding  the  jar  of  the  transition. 
The  two  phases  of  life  stood  apart  from  each  other, 
the  one  in  its  strained  and  awful  quality,  the  other 
in  its  homely  and  uninspired  details.  I  think  my 
mother  passed  and  repassed  the  boundary  with  no 
sense  of  incongruity,  but  she  was  never  able  to 
lead  us  children  so  easily  over  it.  But  a  perverse 
theory  had  a  solution  of  this  fact  in  the  depravity 
of  the  natural  heart,  and  the  two  kinds  of  hearts 
remained  an  enigma  with  us,  in  whose  solution 
we  made  but  little  progress. 

My  mother  had  much  tenderness  in  her  nature. 
She  coveted,  and  well  deserved  more  affection 
than  she  was  able  to  win,  The  paths  of  affection, 


io         Things  Learned  by  Living 

especially  for  sensitive  children,  must  be  made 
flowery  and  fragrant.  They  are  easily  startled  by 
those  in  the  pursuit  of  their  love,  and  do  not  read- 
ily put  in  place  of  their  own  dreamy  and  extreme 
impressions  a  correct  valuation  of  the  plain  facts 
about  them.  It  is  with  the  spiritual  shadows  of 
these  facts  that  they  deal  more  than  with  the 
facts  themselves;  and  these  shadows  shrink  and 
lengthen  in  an  astonishing  way,  and  in  a  way  quite 
hidden  from  those  older  persons  who  have  ceased  to 
observe  the  play  of  light  in  morning  hours — those 
hours  of  facile  change.  Love  is  the  fine  art  of  the 
soul,  a  thing,  therefore,  not  of  substance  only  but 
of  form  also.  It  is  a  pity  that  this  fine  art  should 
lose  delicacy  of  manipulation  by  virtue  of  the 
coarse  texture  of  faith;  as  the  hand  is  crippled  in 
its  cunning  by  a  glove. 

In  spite  of  all  the  goodness  of  my  mother,  I 
never  found  my  way  into  her  thoughts  as  a  spiritual 
resting-place;  nor  she,  into  mine  as  a  fresh  nook 
in  a  world  growing  old.  This  loss  of  spiritual  son- 
ship  is  a  profound  regret,  and  one  renewed  in  al- 
most every  generation.  "Suffer  little  children  to 
come  unto  me"  is  a  command  which  few  parents 
apprehend;  still  fewer  are  able  to  so  open  the  en- 
closure of  authority  as  to  give  a  winning  invitation 
to  the  quiet  and  seclusion  within.  Each  spirit, 


Events  1 1 

and  the  more  as  it  is  sensitive  and  timid,  in  spite 
of  all  the  laws  of  descent,  seems  to  be  born  into  a 
spiritual  solitude,  and  one  that  can  be  broken  only 
by  the  most  quiet  and  sympathetic  approaches. 
Unlikeness  in  this  inner  realm  is  even  more  re- 
pellent than  violence  in  the  physical  world.  Par- 
entage of  the  spirit  is  rare;  perhaps  it  should  be  so, 
that  the  separation  of  spirits  may  be  sufficient  to 
give  independent  conditions  of  personal  life.  Par- 
ents float  away  from  the  sensuous,  imaginative 
region  of  childhood,  into  that  of  facts,  facts  to  be 
considered  narrowly  and  reasons  to  be  rendered 
cautiously,  and  so  they  lose  contact  and  mastery 
in  the  magical  domain  of  dreams. 

The  steam  and  smoke,  which  burst  from  the 
funnel  of  a  steam  engine,  interpenetrate  each  other, 
are  full  of  the  same  elastic  forces,  and  circle  upward 
in  chaplets  instinct  with  motion.  Quickly  the 
white  steam  is  absorbed,  and  only  a  few  dark  traces 
of  smoke  remain.  The  more  subtle  element  is 
lost,  leaving  its  companion  to  linger  on  in  dull 
decadence.  In  life,  the  smoke  of  combustion,  the 
feelings  of  self-interest,  usurp  the  field,  losing  sym- 
pathy with  the  volatile  sentiments  of  childhood. 
Children  are  ours  that,  renewing  life  in  each  gen- 
eration, we  may  escape  this  barrenness;  we  are 
theirs  that  we  may  sober  these  fancies  without 


12         Things  Learned  by  Living 

abating  them,  and  may  assign  these  energies  a 
service  before  they  are  lost  in  air. 

Trace  as  we  may  the  spiritual  descent  of  the 
world  from  parent  to  child,  we  have  occasion  to 
be  equally  impressed  with  the  direct  way  in  which 
the  world  deals  with  every  fresh  soul.  The  manner 
in  which  it  shuts  it  in  from  those  about  it,  and  the 
new  things  it  plants  and  nourishes  in  these  retreats 
which  no  man  enters  save  by  the  most  free  and 
cordial  admission.  What  wishes  of  men  or  ways 
of  the  world  are  there  from  which  the  child  cannot 
hide  himself,  lengthening  immeasurably  the  paths 
of  approach,  by  his  own  personal  quality.  Repul- 
sions of  a  subtle  and  invincible  order  play  a  part 
quite  as  important  as  attractions  in  the  close  con- 
tact of  early  life. 

In  our  search  after  a  wise  treatment  of  child- 
hood, we  are  not  to  overlook  the  pushing  impulses 
which  this  training  involves.  The  adult  brings 
his  adult  qualities  to  the  child,  and  they  subserve 
this  purpose,  that  the  child  is  constantly  carried 
beyond  himself.  He  does  not  loiter  in  the  way, 
identifying  life  with  the  sportive  indulgences  of 
the  period  to  which  he  belongs.  The  future,  per- 
sonified in  the  father,  takes  him  by  the  hand  and 
half  leads,  half  drags  him  onward.  Just  now,  by 
our  more  sympathetic  methods,  we  are  holding  in 


Events  13 

check  this  propulsion,  willing  that  childhood  should 
pursue  pleasant  things,  and  should  linger  among 
them  with  something  of  childhood's  indifference 
to  progress.  But  the  growing  process  is  always  a 
pushing  one,  always  a  consumption  of  the  present 
in  behalf  of  the  future.  A  sense  of  gentle,  yet 
constraining  power  is  a  supreme  one.  The  mo- 
mentum of  life  must  pervade  us,  the  flow  of  life 
inspire  us.  The  perfection  of  the  movement  lies 
in  the  very  fact  that  each  stage  in  it  is  a  ready  tran- 
sition to  a  higher  one.  Nature  provides  for  this 
partial  displacement  of  immediate  interests  by 
remote  future  ones  in  uniting  the  child  closely  to 
the  parent,  and  in  carrying  it  along  on  the  strong 
current  of  the  urgent  incentives,  perchance  the 
bitter  necessities,  which  make  up  the  stream  of 
later  events. 

The  household  is  not  to  be  constituted  for  the 
child,  any  more  than  in  disregard  of  the  child.  It 
is  to  be  that  vigorous,  composite  thing  whose  dom- 
inant interests,  wisely  chosen,  are  shaped  by  all, 
are  shaped  to  all,  and  are  pursued  by  all.  Interests 
thus  made  stern  and  commanding,  while  they  con- 
cede many  indulgences,  claim  also  many  conces- 
sions. The  household,  in  its  manifold  relations, 
its  large  receiving  and  giving  in  society,  offers  a 
much  more  thorough  and  far  wiser  training  than  do 


14         Things  Learned  by  Living 

the  simple  devices  of  affection,  bending  themselves 
only  too  quickly  to  the  imaginary  and  to  the  real 
wants  of  childhood.  The  most  pliant  vine  calls 
for  corresponding  rigidity  in  that  which  supports 
it.  Childhood  is  not  the  entire  law  even  to  child- 
hood, much  less  to  the  successive  generations  which 
unite  to  make  the  household.  Simplification,  ten- 
derness, concession  in  the  face  of  interests  intrin- 
sically obscure,  exacting,  and  difficult,  have  their 
evils  as  certainly  as  do  their  opposites.  Object- 
lessons;  an  easy  hopping  from  thing  to  thing  in  the 
concrete,  instead  of  a  strong  spreading  of  wings 
in  the  abstract;  a  reduction  of  duties  by  the  soft 
concessions  of  love;  a  carrying  of  the  loads  of  life 
on  the  shoulders  of  parents  and  teachers,  as  if  our 
pilgrimage  were  made  up  of  two  parts  utterly  un- 
like, one  in  which  we  are  served  and  one  in  which 
we  are  servants;  these  methods  are  not  suffering 
little  children  to  come  unto  us,  but  are  obediently 
coming  unto  them. 

These  considerations  give  us  a  hasty  and  partial 
— and  only  a  partial — vindication  of  the  Puritanic 
discipline  of  the  household  familiar  to  my  child- 
hood. Instruction  was  no  flitting  from  picture  to 
picture,  like  the  flight  of  a  butterfly  from  flower  to 
flower,  until  the  child  leaves  off  these  agreeable  sim- 
plifications with  the  sluggishness  of  one  who  has 


Events  15 

sauntered  in  the  warm  sunshine.  Books  were  few, 
dry,  and  devout ;  and  when  the  imagination  found 
unexpected  entrance  into  any  one  of  them,  as  into 
Pilgrim's  Progress,  the  child  returned  to  it  again 
and  again,  as  to  a  mystic  forest  whose  recesses 
were  never  fully  explored,  and  whose  blossoms  were 
never  all  plucked.  The  Shorter  Catechism  opened 
with  the  kindly  concession  of  a  few  pictures  and 
a  few  rhymes,  but  neither  were  forgetful  of  their 
solemn  mission. 

"  Xerxes  the  Great  did  die, 
And  so  must  you  and  I." 

The  ease  with  which  childhood  shirks  an  undue 
burden  of  rebuke,  or  admonition,  or  instruction,  is 
a  part  of  its  elasticity  of  growth.  Xerxes'  fate  was 
interesting,  but  too  far  off  to  cast  any  distinct 
shadow  on  the  path  of  a  boy  full  of  life.  It  might 
deepen  one  already  there,  it  could  not  create  one. 
Death  is  to  fresh,  ardent  life  what  God  has  made  it 
to  be,  no  more  than  is  the  unseen  boundary  of  dark- 
ness to  daylight.  In  Pilgrim's  Progress,  the  fight 
of  Christian  and  Apollyon  was  to  me  the  kernel 
of  the  story,  while  the  religious  enforcements  were 
the  prickly  burrs,  not  to  be  too  much  handled,  if 
one  understood  the  case. 

If  the  eager  election  of  childhood  leaves  much 


1 6         Things  Learned  by  Living 

good  behind  it,  it  also  leaves  much  evil.  The  ad- 
ventures of  war,  and  even  those  of  piracy  and  crime 
on  which  I  stumbled,  stood  with  me  simply  for 
achievement,  in  a  much  more  innocent  and  harm- 
less way  than  would  have  been  thought  possible. 
Even  the  serpent  may  sometimes  delay  to  sting 
the  playful  child. 

Often  at  the  close  of  a  summer  Sabbath  I  sat  on 
the  ground,  while  my  mother  milked,  and  learned 
from  her  lips  the  catechism,  till  I  could  find  my  way 
along  its  rugged  path  of  words,  deep,  solemn,  im- 
penetrable. I  cannot  feel  that  that  work  was 
vain,  though  my  understanding  has  returned  in 
late  years  to  this  road  of  doctrine  only  to  reduce  it 
to  quite  another  gradient.  I  hardly  know  how  the 
same  amount  of  inexhaustible  impression  could 
have  been  secured  more  quickly  and  more  effi- 
ciently. Those  ideas  which,  at  best,  only  glimmer 
before  the  mind  and  are  constantly  losing  them- 
selves in  mist  and  darkness,  play  the  same  part 
in  the  spiritual  imagination  as  do  bold,  rugged,  in- 
accessible mountains  in  the  landscape.  The 
world  is  wholly  different  because  of  them.  Its 
magnitude  and  mystery  are  indefinitely  increased. 
The  vague,  changeable  sense  of  cogency,  which 
plays  so  important  a  part  in  the  mental  history  of 
a  sensitive  child,  owes  much  to  them.  Those 


Events  17 

mountain  heights  of  truth,  expressions  of  the 
divine  being  and  barriers  of  the  divine  law, 
to  which  the  hand  of  the  parent  was  so  con- 
stantly and  so  reverently  pointing;  those  depths 
of  darkness  in  the  human  heart,  to  which  fearful 
reference  was  so  frequently  made,  gave  the  spirit- 
ual world  dimensions  not  otherwise  attainable. 
The  difficulty  with  these  doctrines  is  less  in  child- 
hood, when  they  abide  so  largely  in  the  clouds  and 
reveal  themselves  only  now  and  then  in  flashes  of 
light  and  peals  of  thunder,  than  in  later  years, 
when  commonplace  overtakes  them  and  they  be- 
come mysteries,  nominally  held  but  neither  felt 
nor  understood.  They  are,  then,  in  the  field  of 
thought,  barren,  rocky  spots  to  which  the  tillage 
of  life  does  not  extend.  Truth  that  is  to  be  con- 
tinuously constructive  in  one's  experience,  must 
open  itself  more  and  more  before  the  eye.  The 
knowledge  which  is  still  enclosed  in  mystery  must 
make  itself  increasingly  felt  by  a  vigorous  effort 
to  penetrate  it.  I  should  hardly  wish  to  have 
moved,  as  a  child,  among  less  imperious  ideas,  or 
conceptions  less  full  of  impressional  powers.  The 
vital  element  in  these  religious  beliefs  is  the  faith 
of  the  parent.  This  gives  to  the  child  the  sense 
of  reality  and  of  direction,  which  is  the  first  requi- 
site of  spiritual  growth.  Increasing  intelligibility 


1 8         Things  Learned  by  Living 

is  a  later  demand  in  sustaining  the  movement  thus 
initiated. 

What  childhood  needs  is  to  be  nourished  by  a 
life  larger  and  deeper  than  its  own,  that  it  may  not 
dwindle  away.  Puritanism  owed  its  powerful 
nature  to  the  awe,  reverence,  profound  feeling 
that  inspired  it.  A  superficial  soil  cannot  feed 
sturdy  plants.  We  are  most  like  little  children, 
nearest  to  them  and  nearest  to  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven,  when  most  impressed  with  the  immeasur- 
able mystery  of  the  world  about  us.  This  feeling 
should  be  the  center  of  household  life  as  it  is  of 
all  rational  life ;  and  the  more  so  as  the  household 
brings  so  many  homely  duties,  so  many  well-beaten 
paths,  which  can  alone  be  made  interesting  by 
leading  outward  into  a  larger  world  and  by  return- 
ing inward  into  a  clear  spiritual  presence.  So 
light  and  darkness  struggle  together,  and  chaos  in 
our  thoughts  passes  into  creation.  Diverse  periods 
and  phases  of  development  are  united  in  the  true 
household  under  the  ruling  idea  of  spiritual  life, 
as  master  and  disciple  work  together  in  the  studio 
under  the  dominant  desire  for  the  beautiful. 

Four  things  concurred  in  my  childhood  which 
are  each  thought  to  involve  some  special  danger. 
I  was  the  son  of  a  minister,  the  youngest  child, 
the  only  son,  and  the  son  of  a  widow.  The  last 


Events  *  19 

three  relations  owe  whatever  hazard  there  is  in 
them  to  indulgence.  The  unavoidable  hardships 
of  my  early  life  and  the  firm  will  of  my  mother 
brushed  these  risks  readily  aside.  The  danger 
which  belongs  to  the  first  fact  seems  to  be  due 
chiefly  to  the  unusual  cogency  of  motive  which 
falls  to  the  household  of  a  minister.  The  mind  of 
youth,  seeking  freedom  and  seeking  it  in  the  degree 
of  its  activity,  feels  any  severe  restraint  put  upon 
it  resentfully,  and  if  this  feeling  is  strong  enough 
to  call  out  a  determined  reaction,  character  loses 
inward  poise  and  may  easily  become  wayward  and 
vicious.  The  spirit  instinctively  claims  liberty, 
as  the  only  just  condition  under  which  it  can  enter- 
tain the  demands  of  duty.  Living  things  must 
be  cultivated  according  to  the  laws  of  their  own 
lives.  Conditions  of  growth  must  be  conditions 
that  invite  healthy  activity,  and  do  not  press  the 
powers  beyond  their  own  pace.  Urgent  motives, 
rigorous  restraints,  prevent  the  mind  and  heart 
from  properly  apprehending  and  freely  obeying 
the  incentives  nearest  them,  and  so  induce  a  stolid 
or  a  passionate  mood.  The  soul  is  driven,  like 
a  ship  under  stress  of  weather,  from  its  own  course, 
and  spends  its  energy  in  beating  against  the  wind. 
It  thus  frequently  happens  that  the  pressure, 
which  a  devout  parent  brings  to  bear  upon  a  son, 


20         Things  Learned  by  Living 

tends  to  results  exactly  opposite  to  those  sought 
for.  The  independent  impulses,  which  are  the 
substance  of  manhood,  which  germinate  early,  if 
not  prematurely,  in  boyhood,  are  enlisted  on  the 
wrong  side,  and  in  this  first  conflict  for  the  con- 
ditions of  a  personal  life,  the  very  law  of  that  life 
is  lost  sight  of,  and  even  trampled  under  foot.  The 
influence  of  my  mother  over  me  for  good  was 
always  somewhat  weakened  by  the  sense  of  author- 
ity, and  by  the  stern,  unyielding  assertion,  not 
only  beyond  contradiction  but  beyond  inquiry, 
which  attended  on  each  tenet  of  faith.  When 
there  is  no  alternative  present,  when  acceptance 
and  obedience  are  all  that  are  offered  the  mind,  it 
readily  entertains  an  inescapable  reluctance  to 
this  surrender  at  discretion.  Inquiry,  deliberation, 
are  its  normal  functions,  and  the  exercise  of  them 
softens  the  way  to  spiritual  life  The  truth  one 
has  discerned  for  himself,  one  finds  more  easy  to 
obey.  When  the  initiatory  steps  of  mental  activ- 
ity are  swept  away,  the  child  has  no  relish,  no 
awakened  appetite  for  later  ones.  The  tender 
life,  never  more  tender,  is  burned  out  of  the  child 
by  the  too  clear  light  and  unshaded  heat  of  the 
parental  mind,  precisely  as  young  plants  perish,  or 
are  "drawn"  into  unseemly  growth,  in  a  hotbed 
when  the  sunlight  is  not  tempered  to  their  wants. 


Events  21 

In  my  own  case,  two  unfortunate  results  fol- 
lowed. A  natural  disposition  to  reticence  on  all 
personal  religious  topics  was  deepened.  Later, 
also,  when  I  began  to  find  my  own  lines  of  action, 
I  was  disposed  to  push  to  one  side  the  profession 
of  the  ministry,  which  parental  wishes  and  family 
affiliations  had  only  too  plainly  indicated  to  me  as 
my  proper  pursuit.  A  desire  to  choose,  stood  in 
the  way  of  choosing  the  right  thing. 

An  easy  solution  of  a  restive  will  in  a  boy  is 
natural  depravity.  I  believe  it  to  be  rather  an 
early,  eager,  divine  assertion  of  the  rights,  duties, 
and  pleasures  of  manly  choice.  The  strength  of 
this  assertion  often  measures  the  incipient  powers 
of  the  soul.  It  is  the  reconciliation  of  this  sense 
of  freedom  with  that  of  law,  a  reconciliation  no- 
where of  more  urgency  than  in  connection  with  per- 
sonal, spiritual  life,  which  constitutes  the  true  secret 
of  all  skillful  training.  Law  must  partake  in  the 
mind  of  the  child  of  the  nature  of  universal  and 
eternal  truth.  It  cannot,  therefore,  find  constant 
and  exclusive  presentation  in  the  changeable  will 
of  the  parent,  a  will  ever  running,  with  only  partial 
correctness,  before  the  child  in  all  the  departments 
of  thought  and  action.  That  will  itself  needs  to 
justify  itself  by  resting,  and  seeming  to  rest  on  a 
far  more  profound  and  immovable  basis.  While, 


22          Things  Learned  by  Living 

therefore,  parental  will  may  and  must  stand  out 
boldly,  in  some  of  its  more  instant  applications, 
it  should,  for  that  very  reason,  withhold  itself  from 
the  deeper  claims  of  righteousness.  Parental 
authority,  like  the  foot-hills  of  a  mountain  range, 
should  push  only  here  and  there  into  the  fore- 
ground, and  forever  rest  back  on  immense,  unex- 
plored, awe-inspiring  heights.  The  mystery  of  this 
more  remote,  moral  region,  which  the  sensitive 
child  can  from  the  outset  be  made  to  apprehend, 
will  do  far  more  in  inspiring  awe,  in  compelling 
the  mind  to  feel  that  exploration  and  enlargement 
are  the  secrets  of  life,  than  any  system  whatsoever 
of  well-defined  doctrines. 

In  my  college  work,  I  have  been  in  constant  and 
close  contact  with  young  men,  for  ends  of  control 
and  guidance,  at  the  very  time  when  their  vigorous 
spirits,  full  of  bursting  buds,  were  looking  about 
them  for  the  proper  field  of  their  powers.  As  a 
young  man,  I  was  a  somewhat  earnest  advocate 
of  stringent  discipline.  High  fences,  close  at  hand, 
seemed  good  for  the  garden.  I  was  less  aware  of 
their  cold  shadows,  I  was  wont  to  fret  under  the 
uncertain  and  hesitating  movement  of  Dr. 'Hopkins. 
Later,  as  president,  I  found  young  men  in  my  own 
faculty  full  of  this  same  disposition,  when  it  was 
passing  away  in  me.  I  was  tempted  to  ask  my- 


Events  23 

self  if  this  question  of  discipline  was  simply  one  of 
age?  Do  rigidity  and  severity  mean  merely  the 
domineering  disposition  of  youth,  asserting  itself 
against  the  same  tendency  in  those  only  a  little 
younger  than  themselves?  Do  leniency  and  pa- 
tience stand  for  nothing  but  the  more  sluggish  blood 
of  increasing  age?  These  physical  changes  tell  a  por- 
tion of  the  story ;  they  do  not  tell  the  whole  story. 
Age,  reached  along  a  path  of  thoughful  activity, 
makes  us  wiser  in  our  spiritual  method.  We  see 
more  comprehensively  the  very  narrow  limitations 
which  accompany  all  physical  force,  and  all  re- 
straint which  smacks  of  it.  We  recognize  the  neces- 
sity of  holding  ourselves  somewhat  aloof  from  those 
we  would  influence.  Our  advice  should  not  be 
minute,  our  counsel  should  not  be  absolute,  our 
good- will  should  not  be  teasing.  We  learn  to  give 
plenty  of  liberty,  and  not  to  apply  restraints  until 
the  convictions  of  those  subject  to  them  are  with 
us ;  until  they  are  moral  germs  planted  in  a  moral 
soil.  The  barriers  we  set  up  are  not  many,  nor 
close  at  hand,  nor  of  obscure  propriety.  There  is 
left  within  them  large  areas  for  individual  discre- 
tion. Truth  is  offered  as  something  which  invites 
consideration.  The  young  man  is  not  compelled 
to  choose  between  his  own  and  another  man's 
activity,  but  is  made  to  feel  that  he  finds  no  true 


24          Things  Learned  by  Living 

use  of  his  liberty  save  in  an  inquiry  which  wisely 
directs  his  own  steps. 

This  method,  it  is  true,  calls  for  great  composure 
of  thought  and  restfulness  of  mood  on  the  part  of 
those  who  employ  it,  but  a  composure  and  rest- 
fulness  at  a  far  remove  from  indifference  or  from 
the  languor  of  old  age.  I  feel  sure  that  this  disci- 
pline, if  it  can  have  time  enough,  can  be  applied 
quietly  enough,  with  no  sudden  flings  of  passion, 
is  certain  to  succeed.  There  may  be  some  lament- 
able failures,  equally  will  there  be  under  the  ad- 
verse method,  but  all  successes  will  be  most 
complete  and  admirable.  Such  nurture,  rightly 
apprehended,  is  nothing  more  than  giving  silent, 
differential  heed  to  the  will  of  God,  as  expressed 
in  the  lives  and  lines  of  action  he  is  sustaining. 

This  question  of  nurture  is,  in  the  household,  in 
the  school,  in  the  state,  and  in  the  ultimate  fitness 
of  the  world  to  our  wants  a  supreme  one.  The 
reports  of  the  reformatory  discipline  at  Elmira, 
where  the  most  refractory  material  was  subjected 
to  moral  forces,  are  exceedingly  instructive.  Much 
the  larger  percentage  of  the  prisoners  who  were 
benefited  by  it  began  at  once  to  respond  to  the 
steady  application  of  mild  motives  to  improve- 
ment. Growth  is  regular  and  by  slow,  continuous 
stages.  Those,  on  the  other  hand,  who  are  not 


Events  25 

helped,  are  wayward  in  their  impulses,  lapsing 
suddenly  from  good  attainment  into  an  utter  dis- 
regard of  order.  The  mind's  acquiescence  in  law 
is  won  in  the  presence  of  the  law  itself,  and  by 
its  gentle,  genial  pressure.  The  man  reaches  self- 
government  by  easy  achievements  of  government, 
suited  to  his  strength. 

Here  seems  to  me  at  least  the  secret  of  the  divine 
method  in  the  world.  The  slow  moving  ages 
travel  on  so  deliberately  in  the  spiritual  realm 
simply  that  the  slight  increments  of  spiritual  life 
may  all  be  made  securely,  be  fortified  within  them- 
selves, and  extended  through  all  the  relations  of 
society  that  are  to  give  them  adequate  nourish- 
ment and  permanent  support.  The  conscious 
processes  of  growth,  no  more  than  the  unconscious 
ones  can  dispense  with  their  manifold- dependen- 
cies, their  attainments  of  infinite  complexity,  and 
can  make  a  sudden  leap  into  life.  When  religious 
instruction  intensifies  its  motives,  and  sets  the 
spiritual  horizon  ablaze  with  alarms,  character 
becomes  fitful,  and  in  many  ways  untrustworthy. 
Fullness,  safety,  symmetry  are  wanting. 

I  have  felt  through  my  entire  life  this  need  of 
aloofness  in  personal  conversation  on  religious 
topics.  This  feeling  has,  at  times,  brought  to  me 
a  good  deal  of  self-censure,  as  if  it  were  the  product 


26         Things  Learned  by  Living 

of  unbelief  or  indifference  on  my  part.  These  may 
be  the  occasion  of  reticence,  but  there  is  a  privacy 
of  our  religious  life  into  which  no  man  may  force 
himself  without  rudeness.  Each  man  must  stand 
at  the  door  of  his  own  house,  or  his  own  chamber, 
to  ask  his  neighbor  in,  if  the  neighbor  is  to  enter 
freely  and  enjoyably.  On  the  platform  or  in  the 
pulpit,  I  have  felt  it  right  to  say,  and  have  had 
a  predominant  disposition  to  say  the  bold,  search- 
ing truth.  The  platform  and  the  pulpit  cannot 
otherwise  accomplish  their  purpose.  In  daily 
intercourse,  my  feeling  has  been,  what  right  have 
I,  uninvited,  to  crowd  my  personal  convictions, 
my  spiritual  presence,  on  another.  In  these  closer 
relations,  everything  must  be  ordered  with  the 
deference,  delicacy,  and  hesitancy  of  personal  rela- 
tions. When  one  has  shut  the  door  into  one's  own 
mind,  it  must  remain  shut  till  one  chooses  to  open 
it  again.  If  this  be  not  so,  why  the  absolute 
seclusion  of  every  spirit  within  itself;  the  slow- 
ness with  which  it  finds  its  way  out,  even  when  it 
wishes  to  make  itself  known;  the  unexpected  jars, 
discomforts,  and  sudden  revulsions  it  suffers  in  this 
very  process  of  communication?  The  most  im- 
penetrable region,  the  most  complete  retirement, 
are  those  of  individual,  spiritual  life.  If  there  is 
any  absolute  reservation  to  himself  on  the  part  of 


Events  27 

God,  it  is  that  of  the  love  of  the  souls  he  draws  to 
himself. 

Even  in  the  pulpit,  when  urgent  truth  has  been 
pressed  home,  there  should  follow  that  calm  and 
quiet  which  make  assimilation  possible.  A  spirit 
that  is  storm-shaken  under  perpetual  shocks  of 
truth  must  become  either  insensate,  or  subject  to 
dangerous  throes  of  passion.  Oh,  for  the  ways  of 
God !  whose  rains  so  fall  that  they  feed  the  violets, 
whose  winds  so  blow  that  they  strengthen  the 
oaks. 

So  far  as  there  is  truth,  and  there  is  some  truth, 
in  the  sentiment  that  secular  and  political  dis- 
cussions are  misplaced  in  the  pulpit,  it  arises  at 
this  very  point,  the  feeling  that  one  is  not  to  be 
tyrannized  over  by  the  convictions  of  others ;  that 
words  of  duty  must  lay  aside  the  accent  of  author- 
ity when  they  are  on  another  man's  lips ;  and  appeal 
convincingly  and  persuasively  to  the  persons 
addressed.  When,  therefore,  aloofness  is  impos- 
sible because  of  a  too  ardent  temper,  the  processes 
of  sound  thought  become  impracticable.  The 
sense  of  absolute  rightfulness,  which  has  attended 
on  the  doctrine  of  inspiration,  has  been  obstructive 
in  a  living  interplay  of  thought  between  those 
speaking  and  those  spoken  to. 

Three  sisters,  all  older  than  myself,  offered  to 


28          Things  Learned  by  Living 

me,  next  to  my  mother,  the  first  and  dearest 
images  of  womanhood.  I  owe  much  to  women. 
One  must  always  owe  much  to  them  in  his  higher 
fortunes.  The  terms  on  which  we  stand  with 
women  must  go  far  to  settle  our  footing  with  that 
which  is  purest,  most  spiritual,  most  of  the  nature 
of  divine  life.  There  is  extraordinary  folly  in 
pushing  women  aside  in  counsel,  and  in  returning 
to  them  in  affection  only.  Love  sinks  at  once, 
under  such  a  sentiment,  from  its  celestial  level  to 
a  distinctly  terrestrial  one,  where  its  consolations 
are  of  the  most  limited  and  fluctuating  order.  The 
one  weakness  in  Goethe  is  his  sensuousness.  He 
cannot  hold  fast  at  any  spiritual  elevation,  but 
comes  tumbling  down  into  a  lower  stratum  of 
passionate  illusions  and  false  lights. 

This  relation  of  the  sexes  is  wrong  on  the  ground 
of  simple  wisdom.  Men  preeminently  lack,  in  deal- 
ing with  themselves,  in  dealing  with  one  another, 
the  insight  of  large  and  varied  affections.  They 
expect  in  their  own  lives,  from  ambitious  efforts 
of  many  kinds,  a  good  these  can  never  confer. 
They  think  themselves  most  completely  right, 
when  they  are  most  thoroughly  wrong.  Their 
wisdom  avails  them  along  the  way,  but  comes  to 
nothing  at  the  very  end.  We  are  deceived  most 
frequently  by  the  complexity  of  our  affairs.  We 


Events  29 

have  a  passion  for  management  and  think  our- 
selves prosperous  until  we  close  our  labors.  We 
are  then  left  to  the  irremediable  poverty  of  an 
inadequate  end.  Our  successes  betray  us,  and 
for  this  treachery  we  find  no  redress.  We  have 
wrought  out  the  problem  of  life  in  symbolical 
characters,  and  only  the  symbols  of  good,  not  the 
very  good  itself,  are  left  us,  the  fruit  of  our  solution. 
The  womanly  mind  has  the  free  entry  to  life  far 
more  than  the  masculine  mind ;  because  by  virtue 
of  the  wisdom  of  the  affections,  it  lays  more  direct 
hold  on  substantial,  spiritual  possessions.  The 
lichen  seems  to  draw  something  from  the  very  rock ; 
at  all  events  it  finds  a  footing  there  which  enables 
it  to  feed  on  the  winds.  How  have  some  women 
clung  to  some  men,  and  achieved  a  wealth  of 
spiritual  being  where  nothing  was  granted  them 
but  a  most  flinty  point  of  attachment !  Most  men 
wither  off-hand  under  such  conditions. 

Men  are  unwise  in  dealing  with  men.  They 
expect  more  from  force  and  fear,  even  from  justice 
and  just  laws,  than  are  in  them.  They  lay  down 
bounds  of  action  judiciously;  they  fence  in  the 
grounds  to  be  cultivated  with  a  barrier  high  and 
strong;  and  then  expect  that  the  much  more  deli- 
cate processes  of  production  will  call  for  only 
secondary  attention.  They  have  not  at  their 


3Q         Things  Learned  by  Living 

command  the  sunshine  and  showers  which  alone 
bring  life  to  living  things.  They  expect  that 
nurture  and  education,  treated  in  a  method  rela- 
tively indifferent  to  spiritual  temper,  with  the 
slightest  possible  trace  of  pure  love,  will,  none  the 
less,  beget  righteousness.  Mechanical  elements 
have  an  advantage  with  them  because  they  them- 
selves are  so  mechanical  and  have  so  searching  an 
eye  for  routine. 

Young  men  in  discipline  grasp  quickly  at  pun- 
ishment, as  offering  the  most  cogent  motives,  and 
the  motives  nearest  at  hand.  It  is  an  error  of 
feeling.  They  are  not  sufficiently  alive  to  the 
evil  temper,  the  distorting  passion,  the  disturbed 
vision  through  the  entire  realm  of  motives,  the 
check  and  displacement  of  the  affections  involved 
in  punishment,  when  pushed  into  the  foreground, 
and  made  the  moral  atmosphere  of  the  soul.  The 
average  male  mind  entertains  stupid  contempt  for 
the  sentiments  and  incentives  of  women.  The 
truth  is  the  moral  world,  the  one  preeminent  world 
with  which  we  have  to  deal,  the  one  world  in  which 
knowledge  becomes  wisdom,  is  a  world  whose  ulti- 
mate terms  are  feelings.  These  furnish  the  final 
forces  in  conduct,  and  in  their  wide  and  varied 
combination  with  what  is,  and  what  is  not,  wisdom. 
No  man  can  be  wise,  who  has  not  delicate,  varied, 


Events  31 

and  well-disciplined  sensibilities,  since  these  are 
the  factors  with  which  he  has  to  deal  in  all  true 
guidance.  The  hard-working,  tough-handed,  nar- 
row-hearted man  of  few  and  meager  thoughts, 
who  thinks,  full  of  his  self-imposed  and  painful 
drudgery,  that  if  he  should  blow  out  his  tallow 
dip  the  world  would  be  in  darkness,  is  really,  with 
all  his  practicality,  his  dollar-and-dime  wisdom, 
among  the  less  wise  of  beings,  with  instincts  pecu- 
liarly perverted  and  self-torturing.  The  womanly 
tenderness  and  refinement,  which  he  holds  so 
lightly,  have  a  movement  and  an  authority  in  the 
spiritual  world  which  he  cannot  conceive.  We 
bring  a  straight-edge  to  the  things  about  us,  and 
so  pronounce  on  their  adequacy;  but  we  have 
allowed  this  standard  itself,  in  our  domestic  life, 
to  suffer  the  warp  and  distortion  of  time,  until  it  is 
rather  a  record  of  past  injuries  than  a  correction 
of  present  fault. 

Take  any  of  the  complex  questions  of  the  day; 
female  suffrage,  for  instance.  How  wholly  are 
our  opinions  the  deposits  of  our  feelings,  the  slow 
concretion  of  sentiments  no  one  of  which  has  been 
duly  challenged.  Women  are  granted  a  limited 
form  of  suffrage.  There  follow,  perchance,  a  few 
improprieties,  a  little  awkwardness  or  ill-temper 
or  bad  taste  in  the  performance  of  the  new  duties. 


32          Things  Learned  by  Living 

How  quickly  comes  the  sweeping  verdict  against 
all  such  progress  as  vexatious  and  false.  The 
barrenness  of  the  heart  thus  becomes  the  barren- 
ness of  the  head.  The  slow  fructification  of  the 
good  seed,  the  steady  smothering  of  tares  by  the 
wheat,  the  golden  harvest  of  remote  months,  are  all 
hidden  by  a  mere  mote  of  feeling  that  is  floating 
before  the  eye.  The  man  cannot  think,  cannot  see, 
cannot  be  wise,  because  he  has  not  covered,  with 
abundant  sensibilities,  with  living  tissue,  the 
relations  from  which  alone  the  instrument  of  wis- 
dom is  to  be  drawn.  A  Professor  Huxley  is  asked 
what  he  thinks  of  the  philanthropic  schemes  of  a 
General  Booth.  He  makes  answer,  he  is  compelled 
to  make  answer,  from  the  emotional  resources  of 
agnosticism,  an  agnosticism  that  is  altogether  alien 
to  the  spiritual  world  as  we  find  it  and  must  deal 
with  it. 

Or  the  proud,  practical  mind — pride  towers  by 
narrowing  in  the  base  of  thought — pronounces 
prohibition  a  factious,  infatuate  effort.  Why? 
Because  of  the  limited  range  of  feeling,  the  immedi- 
ate predominence  of  local  temperature.  The 
appetites,  the  economic  and  political  interests 
involved  are  understood;  but  the  ever  returning 
griefs  of  the  household,  the  blight  and  mildew  of 
the  affections,  the  moral  ties  of  society  forever 


Events  33 

broken,  the  steady  thrusting  back  of  the  Kingdom 
of  Heaven,  these  are  not  understood,  and  these 
constitute  the  spiritual  problem.  The  man  has 
a  cunning  restraint  in  threading  narrow  and  ob- 
scure paths,  but  knows  not  how  to  walk  straight 
forward  when  given  the  highway  of  truth.  One 
can  know  nothing  well  in  the  spiritual  world  with- 
out delicacy  and  scope  of  feeling,  for  all  its  terms 
are  emotional.  As  light  reveals  objects  to  us  by 
dissolving  itself,  as  it  flows  over  every  changeable 
surface  into  an  infinite  variety  of  colors,  so  the 
affections  open  to  us  the  spiritual  world  by  an  in- 
stant response  to  its  ever  variable  terms.  Love, 
the  comprehensive,  generic  sentiment,  is  the  light 
which  discloses  to  us  all  emotional  realities. 

Men  need  women  in  counsel  because,  with  a 
keener  sensibility,  they  uncover  the  very  things 
to  be  dealt  with ;  because  they  break  down  those 
hard,  determinate  lines  of  thought,  which  are 
simply  the  ruts  of  minds  heavily  laden  with  secular 
affairs.  We  cannot  give  conditions  of  growth, 
institute  a  discipline  creative  of  affections,  with- 
out the  mastery  of  the  affections ;  we  cannot  sub- 
stitute the  elastic  clasp  of  love  for  the  iron  grip 
of  force,  till  love  opens  our  eyes  and  unseals  our 
hearts.  Men  often  despise  women  because  of  their 
superior  sensitiveness  to  religious  truth,  as  if  this 


34         Things  Learned  by  Living 

indicated  poverty  of  mind  as  much  at  least  as 
wealth  of  heart;  as  if  the  heart  were  an  inferior 
organ  among  the  instruments  of  wisdom.  We 
weary  of  this  dull  chuckle  of  the  greedy  spirit  that 
knows  when  it  cheats  another,  but  knows  not 
when  it  cheats  itself. 

But  is  not  the  practical,  practical?  Have  not 
men  the  mastery  they  seem  to  have?  Yes,  but 
this  mastery  pertains  to  the  preliminaries  of  life, 
not  to  life  itself.  All  true  help  is  divine,  and  it  is 
divine  in  the  degree  in  which  it  awakens  penetra- 
tive, peaceful,  pervasive  sentiment;  and  gives  the 
mind  the  mastery  of  the  world  by  giving  it  the 
mastery  of  itself.  If  we  put  our  means  into  founda- 
tions so  lavishly  that  we  are  not  able  to  build  upon 
them,  then  that  which  seemed  to  be  wisdom  sud- 
denly becomes  folly. 

The  practicality  of  persons  narrowly  emotional 
is  like  that  of  those  who  build  railroads.  They 
dig  and  load  and  dump  and  produce  a  variety  of 
changes;  changes  not  small  in  themselves,  but 
very  trifling  when  compared,  either  as  physical 
or  spiritual  facts,  with  those  obscure  changes  which 
steal  silently  over  the  landscape,  when,  by  sun- 
shine and  shower,  it  stands  in  reciprocal  activity 
with  the  heavens  above  it.  I  owe  much  to  women 
as  giving  contact  through  a  wider  circumference 


Events  35 

with  the  emotional,  the  human  world.  I  have 
not  been  left  to  traffic  for  spiritual  possessions  with 
uncurrent  coin. 

My  three  sisters  were  very  different  in  character. 
I  have  not  been  able  to  see  in  either  of  the  house- 
holds most  familiar  to  me,  my  own  and  my  father's 
household,  any  laws  of  descent  at  all  rigid  in  their 
application.  Concede  the  physical  effects  of  phys- 
ical inheritance, — facts  of  so  much  power  and  prom- 
ise,— concede  the  force  of  similar  circumstance 
and  of  the  moral  transmission  of  the  family,  and 
we  have  sufficient  causes  to  explain  agreements 
with  little  or  no  reference  to  intellectual  descent. 
There  remain  very  stubborn  diversities  of  spiritual 
constitution  not  readily  to  be  referred  to  ancestry. 
Vague  suggestions  of  this  and  that  dependence  are 
easy  enough,  but  they  gain  color  from  opinions, 
rather  than  prove  them.  Children  will  grow  up 
under  physical  and  moral  descent,  under  active 
formative  energies,  and  greatly  modify,  or  steadily 
overcome  what  we  should  regard  as  an  overpower- 
ing mass  of  impressions.  There  remains  a  secret 
of  intellectual  life,  a  stubborn  type  in  the  spirit 
itself,  which  our  laws  of  inheritance  envelop,  but 
do  not  control. 

My  older  sister  was  timid,  affectionate,  devout, 
and  rigidly  orthodox.  The  first  and  last  of  these 


36         Things  Learned  by  Living 

qualities  readily  affiliate.  The  distrustful  mind 
clings  tenaciously  to  the  support  nearest  it,  and 
finds  its  activity  in  strengthening,  not  in  criticizing 
its  faith.  She  was  plain  in  person  and  negligent 
of  the  minor  code  of  taste,  which  refines  the  art 
of  living,  but  easily  renders  it  superficial  and  bur- 
densome. The  religious  spirit  more  readily  sees 
.the  earlier  separation  between  elegance  and  de- 
votion than  their  later  union  in  perfect  charac- 
ter. Plain  personal  appearance  exerts  the  same 
influence.  It  does  not  offer  that  immediate 
power  over  others  which  helps  to  form  a  habit  of 
circumspection . 

My  second  sister  was  imposing  in  appearance, 
indomitable  in  will,  and  possessed  of  unlimited 
ambitions.  Conscientiousness  was  pressed  into 
the  background  of  these  more  imperious  tendencies 
and  asserted  itself  at  the  close  of  a  comparatively 
brief  life  as  pronounced  pietism.  Vigorous  con- 
flicts within  the  soul  itself  naturally  lead  to  extreme 
repression.  My  mother  united  a  somewhat  un- 
bending will — an  unbending  will  often  means  noth- 
ing more  than  the  stubbornness  of  primitive 
tendencies — to  very  humble  expectations  for  her- 
self and  her  children.  The  unflinching  courage  of 
my  sister  Mary,  stood  the  entire  family  in  good 
part.  Extreme  poverty,  remoteness  from  relatives, 


Events  37 

an  obscure  community  with  the  narrowest  condi- 
tions of  education,  were  not  circumstances  which 
ordinary  energy  could  overcome.  My  sister  broke 
through  them  for  herself  and  for  each  one  of  us  in 
succession.  All  my  sisters  were  earnest,  home 
students.  They  made  the  largest  use  of  the  least 
opportunity  The  open  fire  cast  its  flickering 
light  on  the  obscure  page  for  them  as  it  has  done, 
with  the  wisest  natural  selection,  for  many  another. 
Mary  secured  admission  to  Troy  Female  Semi- 
nary, under  the  charge  of  Mrs.  Emma  Willard. 
With  a  very  wise  and  considerate  policy,  Mrs. 
Willard  frequently  accepted  pupils  who  paid  their 
bills  as  teachers,  after  their  work  in  the  seminary 
was  completed.  The  South,  at  that  time,  made 
a  large  demand  for  teachers,  and  this  demand  the 
seminary  helped  to  meet.  Mary  was  very  success- 
ful, and  my  other  sisters  followed,  both  as  pupils 
in  the  seminary  and  as  teachers  in  the  South.  My 
oldest  sister  spent  most  of  her  life  in  the  South, 
readily  affiliating  with  its  religious  tension  and 
social  laxity.  As  a  lad,  I  received  a  very  exagger- 
ated impression  of  the  imperative  quality  of  South- 
ern gentlemen  from  the  descriptions  of  my  sisters. 
In  the  luxuriant  growth  of  a  child's  fancy,  hewn 
stone  and  unhewn  are  soon  covered  with  leaves  and 
the  whisper  of  life  runs  along  the  most  rugged  wall. 


38         Things  Learned  by  Living 

When,  having  suffered  the  heavy  losses  of  insuf- 
ficient home  instruction,  I  was  ready  to  seek  better 
opportunities  abroad,  the  way  was  quite  open  to 
me.  My  sister  Mary  had  become  principal  of  the 
female  department  of  the  flourishing  and  influen- 
tial Academy  at  Homer,  and  my  other  sisters  were 
prepared  to  unite  in  meeting  the  expenses  of  my 
transfer  thither. 

Homer  Academy  was  an  excellent  example  of  a 
school  conferring  a  popular  education,  and  receiv- 
ing a  cordial  support  through  a  wide  constituency. 
Here  under  the  immediate  encouragement  and 
direction  of  my  sister,  I  spent  two  terms  in  prepara- 
tion for  college.  Sister  Mary  was  a  truly  providen- 
tial leader  to  our  household,  and  she  brought  us 
all  bravely  through  the  wilderness.  Wealth  and 
opportunity  often  do  less  for  others  than  poverty 
and  restriction  did  for  us. 

My  third  sister,  Cornelia,  was  nearest  me  in 
years  and  in  sympathies.  She  united  a  real  enthu- 
siasm for  knowledge  with  boldness  of  thought — 
with  a  desire  to  extract  from  truth  its  life-giving 
quality.  While  her  religious  sentiments  were  as 
earnest  as  those  of  sister  Harriet,  they  were  much 
more  free,  the  lines  of  constraint  lay  with  her  in 
conduct  and  in  character,  not  in  belief.  Her  intel- 
lectual enthusiasm  early  outran  her  physical 


Events  39 

strength,  and  left  her  a  confirmed  invalid,  whose 
powers  of  work  were  very  closely  hemmed  in.  Cut 
off  from  occupying  positions  of  responsibility,  she 
undertook  the  very  self-denying  labor  of  training 
the  waifs  of  society.  She  adopted  a  small  number 
of  them  into  her  household,  and  accepted  the  entire 
charge  of  them.  She  struggled  with  limited  suc- 
cess against  the  stubborn  evils  of  vicious  descent, 
and  was  satisfied  if  not  quite  all  the  seed  fell  by  the 
wayside.  She  managed  a  very  narrow  income 
with  much  thrift  and  self-denial,  and  gave  an 
example  of  piety,  known  and  read  of  very  few,  but 
very  perfect  and  refining  within  itself. 

When  I  was  nine  years  of  age,  we  removed — a 
bold  step  for  my  mother — from  our  home  in  the 
country,  with  its  exceedingly  restricted  oppor- 
tunities of  every  sort,  to  the  small  neighboring 
village  of  Ludlowville.  Ludlowville  is  situated 
about  a  mile  from  the  mouth  of  Salmon  Creek, 
emptying  into  Cayuga  Lake.  The  banks  are 
abrupt,  and  the  valley  narrow.  Nothing  is  seen 
of  the  small  hamlet  huddled  in  the  hollow,  till  you 
are  close  upon  it.  Then  the  top  of  the  spire  of  the 
church  is  the  first  object  visible.  The  stream  varies 
from  a  torrent  in  spring  and  summer  freshets  to  a 
rivulet  scarcely  sufficient,  in  dry  months,  to  drive 
the  village  mill.  The  stream  makes  a  perpen- 


40         Things  Learned  by  Living 

dicular  fall  of  fifty  feet  at  the  village,  and  in  moods 
of  energy  fills  the  valley,  like  a  brimming  cup, 
with  the  roar  of  its  waters.  The  raucous  voice  of 
the  stream,  the  wildness  of  the  adjacent  banks 
take  possession  of  ear  and  eye,  and  awaken  the 
spirit  to  their  own  freedom.  Above  the  fall,  it 
pours  over  a  bed  of  limestone,  sculptured  into 
many  narrow  channels  and  grotesque  basins.  The 
shale  supporting  this  ledge  has  fallen  away  beneath 
and  opened  a  wide  cavern  veiled,  at  high  water,  to 
its  full  breadth  by  the  impetuous  stream,  a  narrow 
rehearsal  of  those  sublime  forces,  which  appear 
in  Niagara.  The  village,  picturesque  in  situation, 
gave  ample  opportunity  to  the  best  sports  of  boy- 
hood— swimming,  skating,  and  coasting.  On  the 
shores  of  the  lake  and  in  adjoining  ravines,  there 
was  mystery  enough  to  feed  the  imagination,  and 
to  keep  vigorous  the  intellectual  pulse. 

In  this  village,  I  spent  eight  years,  prior  to  the 
more  formal  commencement  of  my  education. 
A  district  school,  with  the  barbarous  and  absurd 
government  of  those  rude  times,  and  an  occasional 
snatch  of  what  was,  in  most  undemocratic  phrase, 
termed  a  select  school  were  all  the  instruction  the 
place  offered.  The  citizens  of  the  village  seemed 
to  me  a  strongly  marked  group.  That  there  were 
giants  in  those  days  is  the  concise  rendering  of  the 


Events  41 

early  history  of  nations  and  persons.  The  stand- 
ards of  the  boy  are  so  wholly  relative,  that  little 
things  make  the  impression  of  large  ones.  Thus 
the  lives  of  men  are  equalized  in  the  only  experi- 
ence of  any  moment,  that  of  inner  impressions. 
Those  who  stand  about  a  campfire  are  projected 
in  portentous  dimensions  on  the  darkness  behind 
them,  and  those  who  surround  a  child  fill  his  hori- 
zon with  a  majestic  or  a  monstrous  or  a  mysterious 
presence. 

One  man  especially,  Benjamin  Joy,  added  noble 
purposes  to  unusual  gifts,  and  stood  in  the  fore- 
ground of  my  open-eyed  reverence.  He  was  an 
earnest  reformer  in  the  anti-slavery  agitation, — 
the  flow  of  run-away  slaves  was  then  drifting  by 
us — and  indefatigable  in  preaching  temperance. 
He  was  an  effective  speaker,  an  excellent  story- 
teller, and  with  features  and  scalp  so  movable  as 
to  make  his  face  the  very  seat  of  the  droll  spirit 
of  fun.  The  facetious  mood  and  the  flexible 
expression  are  often  the  inner  and  outer  endow- 
ment of  one  self-consistent  temper.  His  general 
sportive  play  always  settled  back  into  the  truly 
productive  power  of  good- will.  He  gathered  us 
boys  into  a  dramatic  company,  and  took  us  to 
neighboring  villages  to  capture  an  audience  for 
his  own  more  strenuous  speech.  He  was  a  devout 


42          Things  Learned  by  Living 

man  and  filled  out  well  the  divine  description,  go- 
ing about  doing  good .  His  barn  j  oined  our  garden ; 
he  used  it  as  a  devotional  closet,  and  I  frequently 
heard,  with  indescribable  awe,  the  voice  of  earnest 
prayer.  Goodness  of  this  order  has  a  grand  pres- 
ence to  the  impressionable  feelings  of  childhood. 
Benjamin  Joy  should  stand  high  among  those 
worthies  who,  in  an  obscure  region,  diffuse  and 
transmit  the  spiritual  treasures  of  the  race,  and 
are  a  burnished  link  in  the  great  chain  of  social  life. 

I  remember,  however,  that  some  incongruities 
of  character,  even  then,  startled  me.  I  was  always 
tenderly  disposed  toward  animals  and  never 
inflicted  pain  except  in  sudden  anger.  I  was  aston- 
ished at  the  heat  with  which  he  flung  stones,  and 
at  the  unconscionable  size  of  the  stones  he  flung 
at  hogs  to  be  driven  from  his  orchard.  He  did 
not  walk  with  the  brute  creation  with  quite  the 
same  gentleness  with  which  he  walked  with  men. 
His  life  had  not  reached  in  all  parts  its  proper 
circumference. 

The  boys  of  a  village  are  only  half  domesticated 
animals,  and,  coming  among  them  with  the  inex- 
perience of  a  country  lad,  I  had  a  good  many 
uncomfortable  lessons  to  learn.  I  had  a  fear  of 
them  as  of  strange  dogs  that  were  sure  to  bark,  and 
might  very  easily  bite.  Though  possessed  of  inde- 


Events  43 

pendent  and  uncompromising  moral  convictions, 
I  have  always  been  exceedingly  shy,  and  have 
suffered  deeply  from  every  form  of  personal  colli- 
sion. This  combination,  trying  as  it  is,  seems  to 
be  well-nigh  inevitable,  and,  in  its  wider  relations 
most  fortunate.  A  coarse,  domineering  moral 
temper  ceases  to  be  moral.  Sensitiveness,  the 
power  of  extended  sympathy,  is  a  first  condition 
of  a  truly  just  and  comprehensive  spiritual  experi- 
ence. Yet  many  of  the  events  of  life  must  render 
any  delicacy  of  fiber  painful  to  us.  The  sufferings 
in  the  life  of  Christ  were  occasioned  by  the  tender 
sensibilities  he  brought  to  its  rude  shocks. 

The  intercourse  of  rough  boys  has  very  little 
moral  element  in  it,  and  is  a  most  uncomfortable 
school  for  a  sensitive  spirit.  One  dislikes  almost 
equally  to  shelter  a  child  from  it  and  to  expose  him 
to  it.  Exposure,  accompanied  with  retiring  and 
sympathetic  oversight,  seems  to  be  the  safer  of  the 
two  methods.  If  one  is  to  help  childhood  in  its 
trials,  he  must  share  appreciatively  the  moods  of 
childhood,  its  wide  sense  of  danger,  its  sentiments 
of  honor,  and  the  great  force  with  it  of  the  social 
feelings  which  surround  it.  To  pooh-pooh  all 
these  impressions  alike  is  to  drive  the  sensitive, 
secretive  mind  quickly  back  into  itself,  and  to 
render  aid  impossible. 


44          Things  Learned  by  Living 

I  suffered  somewhat  from  the  vicious  vulgarity 
of  village  boys,  but  should  have  escaped  all  ma- 
terial injury,  if  contact  had  been  confined  to  the 
school  and  playground.  Noxious  heat  arises  from 
too  close  and  secluded  intercourse.  The  wider 
relations  of  the  community  are  more  wholesome, 
all  things  considered  than  the  narrower  connections 
of  coteries.  It  is  easier,  under  the  influence  of  a 
good  home,  to  shake  off  vulgarity  in  the  training 
of  a  child,  than,  in  an  experience  seduously  sepa- 
rated from  that  of  the  many,  to  escape  from  the 
pride  and  selfishness  which  these  conditions  tend 
to  foster.  Moreover,  vulgarity  is  by  no  means  so 
secret,  pervasive,  and  consuming  a  sin  as  is  personal 
and  social  pride.  It  is  the  sins  congenial  to  our 
circumstances  that  we  are  especially  to  fear. 

More  sensitive  than  my  associates,  I  suffered 
often  in  the  rude  jostle  of  our  sports.  On  one 
occasion,  and  on  one  only,  did  I  resist  aggression 
with  violence.  This  fray  I  justified  to  myself, 
and  entered  into  deliberately.  A  passionate  and 
overbearing  playmate  had  abused  me  in  the  pres- 
ence of  other  boys,  and,  retiring  to  the  defense  of 
his  own  yard,  had  thrown  stones  at  me.  This  was 
so  unprovoked  a  declaration  of  war  that  I  felt  that 
peace  could  be  had  only  by  conquering  it.  Find- 
ing him  alone  on  the  following  day,  I  demanded 


Events  45 

satisfaction.  He  was  unrelenting  in  temper  and 
not  averse  to  a  quarrel,  so  that  the  claim  issued 
at  once  in  a  close  grapple.  We  were  about  equal 
in  strength,  but  here  all  parity  ceased.  He  was 
versed  in  conflict  and  unscrupulous  in  method, 
while  I  was  without  experience  and  fearful,  even  in 
anger,  of  inflicting  injury.  The  result  was  that  he 
left  the  traces  of  his  nails  all  over  my  face.  When 
the  fight  was  the  hottest,  his  mother  appeared  on 
the  field,  and,  much  to  my  advantage,  put  an  end 
to  it.  I  had  inflicted  no  injury  and  bore  away  on 
my  features  a  conspicuous  diagram  of  the  battle, 
a  most  disagreeable  tell-tale  for  weeks  to  come. 
As  I  have  found  many  a  time  since,  public  impres- 
sion is  of  more  immediate  moment  than  abstract 
justice.  Justice  is  frequently  that  slow  tortoise 
whose  victories  come  so  late,  if  they  come  at  all, 
that  the  circumstances  which  they  should  have 
illuminated  have  passed  away.  It  is  difficult  to 
feed  even  on  the  sense  of  rightfulness,  when  the 
feast  is  all  one's  own.  How  to  carry  home  that 
face  to  a  Puritanical  household  of  women,  who  not 
only  could  not  understand  why  I  should  quarrel, 
but  could  not  even  conceive  why  I  should  think 
it  necessary  to  quarrel,  was  a  very  uncomfortable 
problem.  I  hung  around  until  dark  and  then  pre- 
sented myself  with  such  apparent  shame  as  to 


46         Things  Learned  by  Living 

condemn  a  much  better  cause.  I  had  not,  however, 
duly  considered  one  feeling  which  made  in  my 
favor.  The  motherly  tenderness,  which  my  appear- 
ance aroused,  helped  to  call  out  indignation  against 
my  enemy  and  so  to  cover  my  fault.  A  balance 
of  feelings  not  infrequently  accomplishes  what 
might  better  be  secured  by  a  balance  of  judgment. 
It  is  fortunate  that  there  are  so  many  things  which 
in  part  supply  the  place  of  thoughtfulness. 

At  the  age  of  seventeen,  I  went  to  Homer,  which 
seemed  to  me  a  place  of  most  imposing  appearance 
and  inexhaustible  opportunities.  The  two  terms 
I  spent  there  were  devoted  unreservedly  to  hard 
study.  It  ought  to  be  recorded  that  a  room,  board, 
fuel,  lights,  and  washing  could  then  be  obtained, 
under  good  conditions,  for  $1.25  per  week.  Here 
was  an  easy  road  into  the  kingdom  of  knowledge. 
I  was  desirous  to  go  to  Yale.  I  was  urged  to  go  to 
Hamilton,  and  the  question  was  compromised  by 
sending  me  to  Williams,  the  college  of  my  father 
and  uncles. 

The  four  years  I  spent  in  college  were  years  of 
almost  unalloyed  pleasure.  They  would  be  so 
in  the  retrospect,  if  I  could  add  to  them  the  feeling 
of  having  done  profitable  work.  This  deficiency 
I  was  not  well  aware  of  at  the  time.  It  lay  not  in 
myself  nor  in  my  companions,  but  in  the  very 


Events  47 

ordinary  instruction  provided.  I  very  much 
needed  the  insight  and  guidance  of  a  superior 
teacher  in  language  and  literature,  and  these  were 
missed  in  my  college  days  almost  utterly.  All 
that  depended  for  its  value  on  the  unfolding  of 
thought,  I  mastered  readily,  but  in  that  which 
turned  on  a  quick  preception  of  secondary  relations 
and  a  lively  sensibility  concerning  them,  I  should 
have  profited  greatly  by  the  adequate  lead  of  a 
cultivated  mind.  A  negligent  attention  to  words, 
and  a  feeble  memory  of  them  made  the  study  of 
language  difficult  and  distasteful  to  me,  and  this 
disinclination  was  not  overcome,  as  it  readily  might 
have  been,  by  opening  up  those  large,  subtle,  and 
vital  relations  of  which  language  and  literature  are 
so  full.  I  was  left  to  toil,  memoriter,  with  the 
mere  mechanism  of  speech,  often  mortified  by  the 
clumsy  touch  with  which  I  handled  words.  I 
was  a  good  scholar  in  college,  and  should  have 
easily  been  a  preeminent  one  had  it  not  been  for 
this  natural  deficiency,  which  my  instruction  had 
done  so  little  to  overcome.  The  skillful  teacher 
should  put  the  pupil  on  horseback  by  giving  him,  in 
every  department,  the  best  use  of  his  best  powers. 
With  a  single  exception,  the  instructors  in  my  col- 
lege life  were  little  more  than  the  driven  stakes 
to  which  we  were  tethered;  they  defined  the  cir- 


48         Things  Learned  by  Living 

cult  of  our  range,  but  did  nothing  to  expand  or  to 
enrich  it. 

Yet  those  years  were  profitable  as  well  as  pleas- 
urable. Undisturbed  opportunity  and  sturdy 
companionship  cannot  fail  of  important  results. 
My  college  class  was  a  large  one,  with  the  variety 
of  character,  energy,  and  confidence  that  usually 
accompanies  numbers.  There  were  among  them 
men  of  fine  ability  and  men  of  very  narrow  abil- 
ity, those  of  earnest  and  honorable  incentives,  and 
those  of  mean  and  personal  ends.  The  numerical 
strength  of  the  class  carried  it  to  the  front  in  all 
college  conflicts,  and  so  helped  to  extend  and  to  in- 
tensify the  experience  of  its  members.  While  the 
class  fell  apart  within  itself  under  personal  prefer- 
ences, it  stood  well  together  in  all  aggressive 
action.  College  classes  that  are  large  enough  to 
give  wide  diversity  of  characters  and  experiences, 
and  yet  not  so  large  as  to  break  up  the  unity  of 
action,  which  belongs  to  a  body  of  young  men  well 
known  to  one  another  and  affected  by  common 
interests,  offer  the  most  sympathetic  and  stimu- 
lating discipline.  Colleges  of  a  moderate  size  are 
not  likely  to  furnish  as  great  a  variety  of  talent 
in  instructors  as  larger  ones,  but  they  give  terms 
of  personal  contact,  of  Antellectual  and  social  life 
superior  to  those  given  by  institutions  that  are 


Events  49 

redissolved,  by  virtue  of  their  very  dimensions, 
into  bands  and  cliques,  separation  of  pursuits  and 
diversity  of  interests. 

College  life  is  delightful  in  the  freedom  it  allows 
one  to  exercise,  under  personal  tastes,  in  the  choice 
of  associates.  Young  men  hold  one  another  to 
very  light  obligations,  as  regard  the  formal  duties 
of  social  intercourse.  A  complete  suspension  of 
social  relations  may  exist  among  classmates  with- 
out offence,  and  the  feelings  are  left  to  their  own 
spontaneous  affiliations.  This  connection  may  not 
be  a  good  preparation  for  the  many  just,  but  some- 
what irksome  claims  that  society  may  later  lay 
upon  one,  but  it  is  none  the  less  full  of  pleasure, 
under  the  warm,  attractive,  and  resistful  impulses 
of  young  manhood.  If  personal  intercourse  is  not 
a  free  concession  of  life  to  life,  whatever  may  be 
true  of  it  from  the  point  of  duty,  it  is  not  worth  the 
maintenance  as  a  matter  of  pleasure.  An  habitual 
sacrifice  of  oneself  to  society  degrades  society 
and  oneself  alike.  Pleasure  cannot  be  robbed  of 
spontaneity. 

College  classmates  are  apt  to  feel  that  they  know 
one  another  perfectly,  and  that  the  coming  years 
will  have  no  further  disclosures  to  make.  This 
opinion  is  not  fully  justified  by  the  facts.  Develop- 
ment with  a  few  men  is  steady  acceleration,  with 


50         Things  Learned  by  Living 

others  it  is  slow  retardation.  Circumstances 
which  are  sufficient  to  repress  some,  only  stimulate 
others,  and  so  the  later  stages  of  the  race  show 
intervals  not  promised  at  the  outset.  College 
predictions,  in  my  own  class,  have  neither  been 
wholly  fulfilled  nor  altogether  belied.  Some  men, 
of  a  choice  spirit,  have  hardly  more  than  plodded 
along,  and  some  men,  with  good  fortune,  have 
fallen  into  the  current  of  the  stream  and  unexpect- 
edly profited  by  it. 

A  college  course,  by  its  enjoyments,  its  ambi- 
tions, and  its  attainments,  isolates  young  men  un- 
fortunately. Large  life  is  drawn  from  the  great 
reservoirs  of  life.  Navigation  is  on  the  ocean.  On 
the  human  side,  much  and  many  impulses  are  left 
behind  by  going  to  college.  There  is  often  consid- 
erable loss  and  limitation  at  the  end  in  restoring 
these  wider  connections.  Coeducation,  among 
other  advantages,  has  this  also ;  the  field  of  knowl- 
edge, which  is  the  highest  of  all,  the  most  open  of 
all,  with  the  least  restriction  to  those  who  can  move 
in  it,  is  no  longer  identified,  in  the  scornful  mind 
of  the  young  man,  with  sex,  or  with  any  narrow 
outcome  of  conventional  sentiment.  There  is  a 
certain  fascination  in  the  separation  and  irresponsi- 
bility of  college  life,  but  we  cannot  advantageously 
sacrifice  to  it  any  of  those  kneading  forces  by  which 


Events  51 

the    community    ultimately    secures    wholesome 
character. 

The  year  that  followed  my  college  course  was 
spent  in  teaching  in  Hoosick  Falls.  It  was  a  year 
of  great  depression.  The  unrestrained  intercourse 
of  college  had  passed  by,  like  a  delightful  dream. 
New  connections,  more  difficult  to  establish  and 
less  immediately  pleasurable,  were  to  be  formed. 
I  had  dropped  out  of  the  region  of  enjoyments  into 
that  of  duties  with  a  fall  so  sudden  as  to  be  wound- 
ing. Neither  had  I  learned  how  to  temper  my 
scholastic  ambitions'to'my  changed  circumstances. 
I  strove  to  add  to  my  exacting  school  work  private 
study,  and  I  had  not  the  nervous  elasticity  to 
bear  the  double  strain.  The  door  into  the  spiritual 
kingdom  is  one  of  wood  and  iron  and  brass,  at 
least  on  the  outside,  and  it  is  largely  a  question 
of  physical  strength  whether  we  shall  be  able  to 
swing  it. 

My  class  was  graduated  in  '49.  Having  taught 
a  year,  I  went  to  Rochester  to  study  law.  My 
desire  to  take  up  this  profession  arose  from 
several  feelings,  none  of  them  very  strong  or  just 
within  themselves.  I  was  a  little  impatient  of 
being  sent  into  the  ministry  by  a  social  sentiment 
outside  of  my  own  choices.  I  had  a  predilection 
for  the  dialectics  of  the  law,  and  figured  it  in  my 


52         Things  Learned  by  Living 

imagination  as  an  arena  in  which  the  weapons  of 
truth  were  freely  employed.  My  religious  opin- 
ions were  slowly  undergoing  change,  and  this 
tended  to  obscure  for  me  the  aims  of  the  ministry 
and  to  relax  its  claims. 

I  spent  eight  months  in  a  law  office.  The 
pleasure  and  profit  of  the  study  were  all  that  I 
anticipated,  but  what  I  saw  of  the  practice  con- 
vinced me  that  it  involved  a  constant  struggle 
with  perverse  tendencies  not  simply  beyond  itself 
but  within  itself,  and  that  not  many  found  it  a 
school  of  spiritual  sentiments.  A  few  robust 
virtues  it  may  easily  nourish,  though  by  no  means 
with  certainty,  but  the  finer  moral  sensibilities 
must  be  won  very  much  in  spite  of  it.  The  con- 
ventionalisms of  law  are  of  an  unyielding  order, 
and  very  earth-born.  He  who  forgets  the  services 
they  have  rendered  and  are  rendering  is  much  at 
fault;  he  who  expects  that  society  will  ascend  by 
means  of  them  into  a  truly  spiritual  region  is  still 
more  in  error.  Law  is  a  brake  on  the  wheels  rather 
than  steam  in  the  engine.  The  moral  conflicts  of 
the  law  are  not  the  best,  because  they  are  indirect, 
perplexed,  mixed  with  personal  interests,  and 
often  futile.  My  nature  called  me  to  crucifixion, 
but  the  law  would  have  been  to  me  crucifixion  by 
a  rabble  of  bad  boys. 


Events  53 

Feeling  that  my  higher  impulses  were  not  likely 
to  be  met  most  directly  by  the  law,  I  turned  my 
attention,  toward  the  close  of  the  year,  to  Hebrew, 
and  the  year  following  entered  the  Middle  class 
in  the  Theological  Seminary  at  Auburn.  I  was 
drawn  thither  by  the  presence  of  Dr.  Laurens 
Hickok.  Seminary  life  is  still  more  delightful  than 
college  life.  The  impulse  is  purer  and  the  har- 
mony more  complete.  If  a  taste  for  critical  and 
speculative  study  is  brought  to  the  seminary,  and 
freedom  is  found  in  its  exercise ;  if  incentives  draw 
after  them  both  mind  and  heart,  nothing  can 
exceed  the  pleasure  of  its  explorations  and  the 
vista  of  hope  they  lay  open.  Grant  these  investi- 
gations to  be  less  secure  than  the  investigation  of 
things,  they  are  more  congenial  to  the  spirit  and 
may  well  be,  if  ordered  with  thoroughness  and 
sobriety  of  thought,  a  better  measure  of  its  powers 
and  a  better  expression  of  its  nature.  The  erec- 
tion of  the  sensuous  above  the  spiritual  is  no  more 
stimulating  in  study  than  in  life.  If  we  scale  pre- 
cipitous peaks  we  need  corresponding  elasticity  and 
firmness  of  foot,  but  nowhere  else  does  the  whole 
man  so  abide  in  strength,  in  enthusiasm,  and  in 
sympathy  with  the  upward  lift  of  all  about  him. 
If  conviction  is  ultimately  grounded  in  itself,  as 
empiricism  is  willing  to  grant,  nowhere  does  the 


54         Things  Learned  by  Living 

mind  so  feel  the  foundations  of  truth  that  lie  under 
it  as  in  spiritual  insight. 

I  was  invited  to  a  tutorship  in  Williams  Col- 
lege in  1852.  This  position  I  occupied  for  a 
portion  of  two  years,  returning  to  the  seminary, 
this  time  Andover,  for  my  third  year  in  1854. 
My  tutorship  was  a  hard,  though  not  unsuccess- 
ful, experience.  It  was  still  the  custom  to  badger 
tutors,  and  to  make  them  as  uncomfortable  as 
circumstances  would  allow.  The  rewards  of  well- 
doing were  neither  very  near  nor  very  manifest. 
That,  however,  which  was  most  vexatious  to  me 
was  that  I  had  been  so  poorly  taught  in  languages 
that  I  could  not  at  once  give  instruction  satis- 
factory to  my  own  mind.  This  difficulty  was  in- 
creased by  the  slow  failure  of  my  eyes,  which  began 
in  the  first  year  of  my  tutorship.  I  can  only, 
therefore,  cherish  the  unsatisfactory  hope  that  I 
was  able  to  do  somewhat  more  for  others  than 
others  had  done  for  me.  The  side  lights  are 
innumerable  in  language  and  literature.  Nothing 
but  wide  scholarship  can  save  one  from  occasional 
error.  The  only  remedy  for  a  mistake  before  a 
college  class  is  its  frank  and  full  correction,  and 
this  is  a  humiliating  experience  to  a  sensitive  man. 
I  was  compelled  to  undergo  a  good  deal  of  distaste- 
ful drudgery  to  escape  it.  It  is  a  pity  that  slovenly 


Events  55 

instruction  should  rob  the  pupil  so  unnecessarily 
of  the  easy  and  alert  accuracy  of  genuine  culture. 
I  was  married  in  1852  to  Abbie  Burt.  This 
was  a  brief  relation  whose  promises  were  unful- 
filled. She  died  in  1854.  The  door  of  vision 
was  hardly  opened  before  it  was  closed  again,  and 
the  mind  was  left  with  a  few  fugitive  pictures 
of  a  very  detached  experience.  In  1856,  I  was 
married  to  Emma  Curtiss.  This  connection  has 
ripened  through  many  years  into  ever  increasing 
happiness.  The  possibilities  of  good  cluster  at  no 
point  so  thickly  as  about  the  marriage  relation, 
yet  nowhere  are  m6re  wisdom,  reserve,  and  delicacy 
of  hand  required  in  securing  them.  The  nature 
of  our  spiritual  life  is  especially  disclosed  in  this 
connection,  and  in  the  connections  which  spring 
from  it.  Among  the  sad  and  clumsy  things  in 
human  experience,  none  are  more  sad  and  clumsy 
than  the  perverse  moods  with  which  we,  at  this 
point,  balk  the  grace  of  heaven  and  our  own 
pleasure.  We  expect  great  things  with  no  real 
power  to  receive  them.  This  relation  touches  so 
many  high  things  that  it  must  come  fully  under 
the  divine  law  of  sacrifice.  We  must  win  life  by 
yielding  it.  The  family  is  a  constant  and  living 
parable  in  which  are  rehearsed  the  dependencies 
of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 


56         Things  Learned  by  Living 

Trifles,  discrepancies,  annoyances  necessarily 
make  up  a  considerable  portion  of  so  large  a  whole 
as  married  life,  and  it  is  from  an  increase  of  these 
irritations  that  persons  of  sober  intentions  have 
most  to  apprehend.  Even  our  own  foibles  are  not 
agreeable  when  offered  in  the  reverse,  and  the  foibles 
of  others  admit  of  indefinite  nervous  aggravation. 
The  idiosyncrasies  of  character,  speech,  and  man- 
ners are  so  many ;  defects  in  the  web  of  inheritance 
so  numerous,  that  no  two  lives  can  run  exactly 
parallel  with  each  other.  The  secret  of  growing 
affection  is  found  in  keeping  little  things  little, 
and  so  winning  the  patience  to  bear  them.  One 
may  well  labor  to  discover  and  to  correct  his  own 
disagreeable  traits,  and,  if  he  is  much  in  earnest, 
he  will  soon  understand  how  invincible  those 
secondary  habits  are  which  lie  one  side  of  the 
voluntary  life ;  but  he  enters  on  a  very  ungrateful 
and  unsuccessful  task  who  strives  to  fill  this  office 
of  a  minute  monitor  for  others.  It  is  much  easier 
to  bear  the  trifles  which  annoy  us  in  a  companion 
than  it  is  for  a  companion  to  alter  these  spon- 
taneous expressions  of  character.  This  involves 
such  a  search  into  the  fountains  of  action  as  is 
very  like  to  roil  all  its  waters.  There  is  no  end 
to  the  irritation,  which  attends  on  correction  in 
secondary  things.  True  wisdom  lies  in  the  pursuit 


Events  57 

of  primary  things  and  in  controlling  their  incidents 
and  accidents,  so  far  as  they  are  capable  of  control, 
through  those  leading  efforts  which  sustain  the 
mind  by  their  own  magnitude.  I  am  conscious 
of  many  ungracious  and  unskillful  ways  of  keeping 
step  with  others,  but  an  easy  asking  and  rendering 
of  pardon  makes,  in  all  minor  offences,  more  for 
union  than  the  offense  makes  for  separation.  The 
last  is  an  appeal  to  our  nervous  irritability,  the 
first  to  our  moral  sense.  The  aggregate  of  friction 
in  married  life  is  often  incomparably  greater  than 
anywhere  else,  but  so  also  are  the  correctives. 
Exercise  produces  skill  and  ease,  not  coarseness, 
in  the  hand  familiar  with  it. 

The  enjoyments,  which  spring  up  like  flowers, 
along  the  ways  of  household  fellowship,  many  of 
them  obscured  by  familiarity  but  many  of  them 
breaking  the  soil  with  the  force  of  a  revelation, 
constitute  a  continuous  sedative  to  irritable  moods, 
a  pervasive  peace  into  which  the  mind  relapses 
from  its  intense  ones.  We  have  no  occasion  to 
pluck  these  flowers,  they  wither  so  quickly  and  the 
path  is  everywhere  so  fruitful  of  them.  They  are 
like  the  cherubs,  which  crowd  the  sky  of  a  Madonna. 
Little  notice  falls  to  any  one  of  them  they  are  so 
many.  The  medicinal  herbs  of  wisdom  we  gather 
and  carry  with  us,  often  with  a  very  obscure  pur- 


58         Things  Learned  by  Living 

pose,  but  the  flowers  that  feed  our  lives  in  their 
passage  we  leave  where  they  grow.  The  pleasures 
we  are  enjoying  gain  a  sweet  lingering  echo  back- 
ward by  the  pleasures  we  have  already  enjoyed. 
Our  better  delights  catch  the  throb  of  immortality, 
so  many  strings  are  strung  to  them. 

When  I  left  Andover,  I  had  no  use  of  my  eyes, 
and  had  not  had  for  nearly  two  years.  I  accepted, 
therefore,  with  fear  and  hesitancy,  an  invitation 
to  a  professorship  at  Williams.  I  occupied  the 
position  of  professor  of  rhetoric  for  nineteen  years, 
including  an  interval  of  one  year,  most  of  which 
was  spent  abroad.  The  work  connected  with 
this  position  was  exacting,  as  it  included  the 
criticism  of  all  the  writing,  and  most  of  the  speak- 
ing of  the  college.  It  was  partially  distasteful  to 
me,  as  I  was  not  interested  in  oratory,  nor  did 
I  particularly  enjoy  rhetoric.  I  introduced  as 
much  philosophy  as  possible  into  my  instruction, 
and  went  conscientiously  through  the  drudgery 
of  the  remainder.  I  introduced  the  study  of 
English  literature  and  aesthetics,  both  of  which 
helped  to  widen  the  rhetoric.  English  literature 
was  rarely  taught,  even  in  colleges,  at  that  time; 
nor  did  I  at  first  find  it  popular  with  the  students. 
As  a  chronological  record  it  failed  to  interest  them. 
Not  until  I  had  gone  over  the  ground  repeatedly 


Events  59 

was  I  able  to  make  it  a  coherent,  rational  experi- 
ence; or  successfully  to  introduce  the  pupil  to 
its  great  masters. 

College  instruction  improved  rapidly  in  these 
nineteen  years  in  variety,  in  insight,  and  in  method, 
but  not  so  rapidly  as  it  has  during  the  intervening 
years.  The  college  professor  then  acquired  his 
power  in  his  work,  he  now  acquires  it  in  anticipa- 
tion of  his  work.  All  gains  have  their  compensa- 
tions. The  specialization  of  educational  work, 
with  its  fullness,  accuracy,  and  observation,  is  often 
attended  with  narrowness  of  mental  vision,  and 
even  with  a  disposition  to  disparage  the  things 
not  known.  A  survey  of  the  entire  field  of 
knowledge  is  worth  more  for  manhood  and  the 
practical  uses  of  most  men  than  an  accurate  knowl- 
edge of  a  small  portion  of  that  field.  Breadth 
and  scope  are  not  to  be  advantageously  sacrificed 
for  the  details  of  particular  departments.  A  col- 
lege aims  at  general  education.  It  does  its  work 
best  when  it  insists  on  a  comprehensive  survey, 
and  adds  to  this  the  opportunity  for  close  and 
careful  work  in  one  or  another  branch  of  inquiry. 
The  mind  thus  escapes  both  the  vagueness  of 
general  ideas  and  the  narrowness  of  special  facts. 
It  sees  the  process  by  which  the  theory  of  thought 
is  filled  out,  and  by  which  it  is  filled  in  with  the 


60         Things  Learned  by  Living 

subject  matter  of  thought.  The  effort  I  made  to 
give  intellectual  expansion  to  my  work  is  seen  in 
the  books  I  then  wrote  in  aid  of  it — Philosophy  of 
Rhetoric,  Science  of  Beauty,  Philosophy  of  English 
Literature. 

My  instruction  in  Williams  was  successful,  with 
the  possible  exception  of  oratory.  In  this  I  re- 
ceived more  or  less  aid,  and  was  constantly  hop- 
ing, though  to  no  purpose,  to  escape  the  work 
altogether. 

In  1874,  I  was  invited  to  take  the  presidency  of 
the  University  of  Wisconsin.  As  I  despaired  of 
a  favorable  change  of  work  at  Williams,  and  found 
that  my  growing  freedom  of  religious  thought  was 
making  my  presence  less  agreeable  to  the  college, 
I  accepted  the  invitation.  I  took  to  myself  a 
daily  recitation  in  philosophy,  ethics,  and  kindred 
branches,  and  my  instruction  became,  henceforth, 
very  enjoyable  to  me.  I  was  able,  by  means  of  it, 
to  strengthen  my  hold  on  the  students  and  greatly 
to  enlarge  my  work  in  their  behalf.  The  students 
in  western  institutions  were,  at  that  time,  less 
well  prepared  for  their  college  course  than  eastern 
students,  but  were  far  more  uniformly  interested 
in  it.  They  had  little  of  that  traditional  temper, 
which  leads  a  college  class  silently  to  antagonize 
a  teacher,  to  become  cynical  critics  of  the  least 


Events  61 

slip  on  his  part,  to  repress  any  manifestation  of 
enthusiasm  in  class  work,  and  to  accept  with 
coldness  any  additional  labor.  The  wisdom  of 
instruction  lies  very  much  in  knowing  what  and 
how  much  to  require,  but  a  fortunate  solution  of 
this  difficult  question  is  less  likely  to  be  reached 
when  students  constitute  themselves  the  pre- 
scriptive guardians  of  old  measurements  and  fa- 
miliar tasks.  Freedom  and  frankness  are  more 
common  in  the  west  than  in  the  east.  My  ex- 
perience as  a  teacher  in  the  University  of  Wis- 
consin left  little  to  be  desired.  We  enjoyed 
together  the  free  range  of  our  topic. 

The  discipline  of  the  students  fell  largely  into 
my  hands.  There  was  a  vulgarity  in  practical 
jokes  and  a  stubborn  discourtesy  in  the  earlier 
years  of  my  presidency,  which,  without  amounting 
to  ugliness,  were  very  trying.  I  succeeded  in 
slowly  overcoming  these  evils  almost  wholly,  and 
in  establishing  a  discipline  which  was  effective 
without  being  conspicuous.  The  criticism  which 
the  management  of  the  University  encountered 
was  that  there  was  no  government.  But  as  the 
candid  were  compelled  to  admit  that  the  general 
bearing  of  the  students  was  circumspect,  the 
censure  itself  became  praise.  This  result  was 
reached  by  a  continuous,  but  restrained  appeal 


62         Things  Learned  by  Living 

to  the  moral  sense  of  the  students,  accompanied 
with  a  concession  of  the  liberty  of  action  which  is 
necessary  to  give  that  sense  full  play.  There  was 
no  surveillance,  no  assumption  of  a  mischievous 
disposition  as  the  prevailing  temper.  Care  was 
taken  to  remove  all  temptations  to  wrong  doing, 
and  any  results  of  willful  injury  were  quietly  and 
immediately  effaced.  The  eclat  of  misdeeds  was 
made  as  slight  as  possible,  and  discipline  proceeded 
with  as  little  observation  as  possible.  The  offender 
and  the  offense  were  remanded  to  the  rear;  and 
if  the  evil  was  obdurate,  the  ill-disposed  student 
was  quickly  dismissed.  The  terms  of  intercourse 
in  matters  of  discipline  were  perfectly  open  and 
frank.  The  student  was  at  liberty  to  say  all  that 
he  chose  in  justification  of  his  action,  or  in  condem- 
nation of  the  conditions  under  which  he  had  been 
placed.  The  offense  was  judged  on  its  merits, 
the  state  of  mind  of  the  offender  being  the  most 
essential  item  in  the  verdict.  There  was  no  ap- 
pearance of  knowing  more  about  the  facts  than 
was  known,  and  no  effort  to  secure  any  exposure 
of  students  by  one  another.  Great  importance  was 
attached  to  frankness,  and  the  severest  censure 
visited  on  falsehood.  While  a  deserved  rebuke 
was  unsparing,  the  mitigations  of  the  offense  per- 
sonal to  the  offender  were  freely  allowed.  Friction 


Events  63 

was  reduced  to  a  minimum,  no  threats  were  made, 
and  much  care  was  exercised  not  to  be  caught  in 
an  untenable  position,  nor  to  be  found  attempting 
the  impossible.  If  an  error  was  committed  in 
management,  in  command  or  in  censure,  a  short 
corner  was  turned  at  once  and  openly.  The  only 
infallible  thing  in  the  discipline  was  that  the 
student  should  be  sure  of  candid  and  genuine  treat- 
ment; that  the  remedy  should  not  aggravate  the 
disease. 

A  clear  and  restrained  idea  of  the  purpose  of 
college  punishments  is  essential  to  their  entire 
success.  The  misdeed  of  the  student  has  a  double 
bearing,  as  a  personal  fault  and  as  interfering  with 
the  work  of  the  institution.  The  last  evil  is  the 
one  to  be  explicitly  brought  into  the  foreground, 
and  to  be  checked,  if  need  be,  by  punishment.  The 
student  more  readily  sees  this  phase  of  his  wrong, 
admits  the  need  of  a  remedy,  and,  is  compelled  to 
allow  that  in  its  application,  his  personal  liberty 
is  not  unwarrantably  set  aside.  Personal  training 
and  abstract  right  are  too  remote  from  the  neces- 
sarily feeble  government  of  our  higher  educational 
institutions  to  become  primary  objects.  The 
purely  moral  problem  will  be  handled  more  success- 
fully as  an  incident  to  a  well-ordered  community 
than  when  treated  by  itself.  The  entire  field  of 


64         Things  Learned  by  Living 

moral  influence  is  thus  preserved  on  its  own  pure 
and  proper  basis.  The  instructor  is  able  to  main- 
tain terms  of  counsel  and  kindly  persuasion.  Pun- 
ishments and  preachments  are  kept  apart.  The 
punishment  does  not  destroy  the  good  temper  of 
the  preachment,  nor  the  preachment  waste  itself 
on  the  passion  incident  to  the  punishment. 

Next  to  personal  influence — but  next  by  a  wide 
interval — the  best  college  discipline  is  a  guillotine 
government,  administered  in  an  exact,  mechanical 
way.  A  few  well-defined  offenses,  followed  at  once 
with  precise  consequences,  put  the  pupil  on  a  very 
intelligible,  if  not  a  very  stimulating  basis.  The 
most  perplexed,  perplexing,  and  exasperating  dis- 
cipline is  that  of  a  college  faculty,  administered 
by  deliberation.  It  lacks  continuity,  harmony,  and 
personal  insight,  and  reaches  its  goal,  if  it  reaches 
it  at  all,  by  the  merest  good  fortune. 

The  University  of  Wisconsin,  in  common  with 
western  institutions,  is  co-educational.  The  dis- 
cipline is  not  much  altered  by  this  fact,  nor  rendered 
more  difficult  by  it.  It  rarely  happened  that  this 
feature  was  involved  in  the  government  of  the 
University.  It  brings  the  need  of  an  additional 
and  bolder  emphasis  on  the  principles  of  personal 
liberty  and  of  personal  responsibility,  but  it,  at 
the  same  time,  surrounds  and  sustains  them  by 


Events  65 

more  obvious  and  urgent  motives.  College  tradi- 
tions, which  are  mostly  on  the  side  of  mischief, 
mostly  refractory  to  a  growing  moral  sense,  are  less 
numerous  in  the  west  than  in  the  east;  and  this 
more  independent  and  placable  state  of  thought 
is  aided  by  co-education.  I  have  no  doubt  that 
the  progress  of  years  will  disclose  a  definite  superi- 
ority in  the  social  condition  of  the  western  states 
due  to  this  wise  policy  of  giving  their  sons  and 
daughters  the  best  training  under  moral  conditions 
wide  enough  to  enable  them  to  share  it  in  common. 
There  is  in  this  method  a  largeness  of  experience, 
a  breadth  of  social  horizon,  to  be  gotten  in  no  other 
way.  In  the  fourteen  classes  I  taught  in  Wisconsin 
one  hundred  and  sixty-one  women  were  graduated. 
They  were  fitted  to  exert,  and  are  exerting  a 
powerful  and  peculiarly  beneficent  social  influence. 
The  University,  in  the  years  that  I  was  con- 
nected with  it,  shook  off  its  preparatory  work, 
greatly  improved  the  quality  and  increased  the 
variety  of  its  instruction,  and  fairly  planted  itself 
on  a  university  basis.  A  transition  to  graduate 
work  is  a  slow  and  difficult  one,  and  can  be  more 
successfully  accomplished  in  distinct  institutions 
than  in  those  the  great  bulk  of  whose  work  must 
remain  with  undergraduates.  The  appliances 
and  methods  of  one  form  of  study  are  so  much  in 


66         Things  Learned  by  Living 

advance  of  those  of  the  other,  that  they  each  pros- 
per better  by  exclusion  than  inclusion.  Our  educa- 
tional institutions  suffer  from  an  ambition  which 
strives  to  raise  them  above  their  place  in  the  series 
rather  than  to  perfect  them  in  their  own  place. 

The  east  much  underestimates  the  west,  and 
the  west  is  needlessly  sensitive  to  this  disparage- 
ment. The  instruction  in  the  University  of 
Wisconsin  is  not  easily  surpassed  anywhere  in 
some  departments,  and,  as  a  whole,  certainly 
reaches  the  average  of  good  collegiate  training. 
Science  is  in  advance  of  literature  and  philosophy. 
This  result  is  consonant  with  the  sentiment  of 
the  community.  An  active,  busy  community 
affiliates  with  science ;  one  of  leisure  with  literature 
and  art;  and  one  of  spiritual  impulses  with  phil- 
osophy, as  holding  the  secrets  of  life.  I  had  diffi- 
culty in  retaining  any  psychology  or  ethics  in 
the  more  practical  courses  of  the  University. 
An  engineer  was  thought  sufficiently  furnished 
for  his  calling  without  the  least  exact  knowledge 
of  his  own  mental  constitution.  An  extended 
mastery  of  the  secondary  laws  of  physics  was  re- 
garded as  of  more  moment  than  the  comprehension 
of  the  primary  laws  of  mind.  Such  a  conviction 
is  not  sound  even  under  the  most  limited  definition 
of  success. 


Events  67 

There  was  one  direction  in  which  the  results  in 
the  University  of  Wisconsin  were  disappointing. 
I  had  supposed  that  extended  and  practical  in- 
struction in  science  would  favor  that  general 
survey  of  the  field  and  interest  in  it  which  are  all 
that  the  classical  and  professional  student  may 
hope  to  attain.  The  result  was  quite  the  reverse. 
Special  students  gave  tone  to  each  department. 
The  students  from  other  departments  were  rela- 
tively interlopers.  Frequently  the  professors  of 
special  subjects  had  neither  the  feeling  nor  the 
skill  involved  in  a  concise  and  impressive  presenta- 
tion of  general  principles.  Their  thoughts  were 
preoccupied  with  special  processes  and  remote 
inquiries.  It  frequently  happened  that  the  class- 
ical student  went  through  his  scientific  instruction 
uninterested  and  unstimulated.  He  felt  that  he 
had  been  dealing  with  that  which  did  not  much 
concern  him,  and  which  he  was  not  expected  to 
master. 

Scientific  work  carried  on  extendedly,  side  by  side 
with  other  branches,  tends  to  overshadow  them 
by  the  much  greater  expenditure  it  demands,  and 
by  its  captivating  array  of  the  appliances  of 
knowledge.  Students  are  apt  to  feel  that  the 
value  of  a  department  is  reflected  in  its  costliness, 
while  the  ruling  authorities  fall  at  once  into 


68         Things  Learned  by  Living 

this  error.  It  requires  real  genius  to  sustain  lit- 
erary, classical,  and  philosophical  instruction  at 
their  true  estimate  in  connection  with  the  more 
sensuous  appeals  of  science.  The  just  equilibrium 
of  a  university — in  the  end  so  essential  for  science 
itself — is  not  easily  maintained. 

The  most  uncomfortable  feature  in  state  uni- 
versities is  likely  to  be  their  boards  of  direction. 
This  is  an  evil  that  the  years  are  sure  to  lessen ;  an 
evil  which,  while  it  lasts,  brings  more  discomfort 
than  real  danger;  and  one  which  does  not  seriously 
reduce  the  value  of  these  institutions.  A  state 
university  is  a  noble  effort  to  affiliate  all  classes 
and  all  sects  in  the  highest  walks  of  education,  to 
compact  the  repellant  nationalities  and  conflicting 
interests,  so  conspicuous  in  our  western  states, 
by  participation  in  kindred  labors  and  in  the  same 
high  attainments.  If  these  institutions  were  much 
less  successful  than  they  really  are,  they  would 
still  be  worth  the  effort  they  involve.  Indeed, 
the  things,  which  make  them  difficult,  make  them 
necessary.  In  achieving  unity,  we  may  give 
occasion  to  strife,  but  not  to  such  strife  as  arises 
across  great  gaps,  fixed  in  our  social  relations. 
The  state  universities  of  the  west  are  doing,  and 
are  destined  to  do,  a  most  patriotic  work,  in  bring- 
ing together  the  very  discordant  social  and  political 


Events  69 

material  of  those  states.  Young  men  and  young 
women,  of  all  affiliations,  trained  together  in  the 
university,  have  a  common  temper  and  a  mutual 
confidence,  which  never  forsake  them.  Here  is  a 
stimulating  contact  of  mind  with  mind,  which 
easily  extends  to  all  the  relations  of  life.  The 
University  of  Wisconsin  has  done  more  to  reduce 
class  collisions  in  that  state  than  has  any  other 
one  agency. 

The  political  cast  of  ruling  boards  is  likely  to 
pass  away  in  the  progress  of  years.  The  politician 
sinks  as  civilization  rises,  and  public  opinion 
becomes  more  sound  and  exacting.  The  personal 
annoyance  arising  from  the  construction  of  the 
Board,  during  my  connection  with  the  University 
of  Wisconsin,  was  very  great,  but  it  affected  me 
far  more  than  it  affected  the  University.  It  made 
my  work  very  vexatious,  and  somewhat  reduced 
its  range,  but  it  did  not  very  materially  check  the 
growth  of  the  institution.  The  irritation  of  these 
unfortunate  relations  falls  chiefly  on  the  President, 
and,  in  my  case,  it  much  exceeded  all  other  forms 
of  discomfort.  An  inflexible  moral  sense  made 
me  very  reluctant  to  conform  to  methods  of  which 
I  did  not  approve. 

The  Board  was  made  up  almost  exclusively  of 
those  interested  in  politics,  and  who  were  thought, 


70         Things  Learned  by  Living 

on  this  score,  to  have  some  claim  to  the  dignity 
of  an  appointment.  Rarely,  indeed,  was  any  man 
granted  the  position  of  Regent  who  had  any  special 
knowledge  of  the  methods  of  education,  or  interest 
in  them.  The  result  was  that  questions  of  manage- 
ment were  settled  on  narrow  grounds,  and  trifling 
and  personal  interests  were  in  the  ascendancy. 
Consultation  on  grave  questions  with  those  who 
have  no  large  ruling  ideas  is  very  irksome  and 
disappointing.  Deliberation  is  sickled  o'er  with 
the  pale  cast  of  expediency.  I  rarely  stood  on 
cordial  terms  with  the  Board,  and  in  the  later 
years  of  my  administration  the  division  of  senti- 
ment was  much  increased  by  an  earnest  advocacy, 
on  my  part,  of  prohibition.  A  state  university 
gives  more  liberty  to  religious,  than  to  political, 
conviction.  In  Williams  College,  I  came  under 
censure  on  the  ground  of  too  discursive  religious 
ideas,  and  in  the  University  of  Wisconsin,  for 
enforcing  political  convictions.  In  neither  case, 
was  my  instruction  ever  made  the  medium  of  a 
personal  opinion. 

The  chairman  of  the  Executive  Committee  had 
in  his  hands,  during  my  term  of  service,  almost 
the  entire  practical  administration  of  affairs.  This 
position  was  occupied,  in  the  period  of  my  presi- 
dency, by  two  very  different  men,  each  in  his  way 


Events  71 

peculiarly  difficult  to  work  with  on  tenable  grounds 
— Napoleon  Bonaparte  Van  Slyke,  and  Edwin  W. 
Keyes.  The  first  was  a  banker,  of  a  very  positive 
and  tyrannical  temper,  and  of  most  minute  and 
searching  observation.  He  was  interested  in  the 
University,  but  interested  in  it  as  something  which 
he  held  very  closely  in  his  own  hand.  He  brought 
the  irritation  of  a  collar  that  chafes  and  chokes  you 
in  every  movement  you  make  and  every  word  you 
utter.  Mr.  Keyes  was  the  boss  Republican  politi- 
cian of  the  state.  He  was  not  without  kindly  social 
quality,  and  was  concessive  in  some  directions,  but 
he  brought  all  things  finally  to  the  test  of  their  im- 
mediate personal  and  political  bearings.  I  had  no 
taste  for  the  indirect  methods  which  such  contact 
calls  for,  and  deeply  disliked  the  delays  and  limi- 
tations it  puts  upon  all  direct  adequate  measures. 

As  the  entanglements  of  my  position  decreased 
the  value  of  my  work,  and  as  they  became  increas- 
ingly distasteful  to  me  with  declining  strength, 
I  felt  it  wise  to  resign  rather  than  to  expose  myself 
to  those  accidents  which  might  make  resignation 
compulsory.  I  had  proposed,  in  going  to  Wis- 
consin, to  remain  not  less  than  ten  nor  more  than 
fifteen  years.  I  had  now  been  President  over 
thirteen  years,  and  given  the  instruction  in  phil- 
osophy to  fifteen  classes. 


72         Things  Learned  by  Living 

When  I  left  Williamstown,  I  retained  my  home 
with  the  expectation  of  returning  to  it.  At  the 
age  of  sixty  I  sheltered  myself  in  the  delightful 
retirement  of  Williamstown,  hoping,  under  its 
peace  and  beauty,  to  pass  gently  into  the  beauty 
and  peace  of  a  higher  and  more  serene  life.  Yet 
storms  are  the  companions  of  all  active  processes 
and  they  are  native  to  all  quarters  of  the  sky.  My 
funds  unexpectedly  failed  me.  The  college  was 
reluctant  to  allow  me  the  work  that  lay  right  under 
my  hand.  I  was  compelled  to  take  up  at  disad- 
vantage the  battle  for  subsistence  once  more — 
this  time  physical  subsistence.  On  the  whole, 
with  more  or  less  fitfulness,  I  have  attained  to 
peace,  though  I  could  easily  mark  out  a  pathway 
apparently  brighter  than  the  one  I  have  pursued. 
This  impression  is  due  in  part  to  the  fact  that  sun- 
shine is  more  conspicuous  when  it  falls  on  distant 
hills,  and  shadows  more  conspicuous  when  they 
hang  above  us  and  rest  about  us.  I  am  devoutly 
thankful  for  life,  so  far  as  I  myself  have  won  this 
life.  I  will  not  regret  any  one  of  the  sacrifices  by 
which  I  have  gained  it. 

Shortly  after  my  return  to  Williamstown,  the 
earnings  and  savings  of  a  life-time — in  themselves 
quite  sufficient  for  my  estimate  of  what  is  needful 
— nearly  vanished.  For  several  years  I  gave  a  few 


Events  73 

lectures  on  sociology  in  the  college  and  partial 
courses  in  other  institutions  on  the  same  subject. 
This  work  was  very  irksome  and  unsatisfactory  to 
me,  as  it  involved  meeting  a  good  many  different 
persons  and  gave  me  nowhere  the  time,  which  I 
have  always  found  so  necessary  in  making  any 
adequate  impression. 

In  1891,  the  professorship  of  political  science, 
owing  to  the  sudden  illness  of  Professor  Perry, 
became  vacant,  and  I  was  asked  to  take  his 
place.  I  was  very  reluctant  to  undertake  the 
work,  as  it  involved  a  change  for  the  third  time 
of  my  primary  line  of  study.  I  entered  on  this 
labor  with  much  anxiety,  but  have  now  finished 
eight  years  successfully.  It  has  been  as  productive 
in  my  own  experience,  as  any  previous  period,  of 
clearer  and  wider  ideas.  A  thorough  interest  in 
social  construction  has  given  direction  and  vitality 
to  my  discussions.  It  soon  became  evident  that 
I  could  interest  the  minds  of  the  students  in  these 
stirring  questions,  and  this  fact  at  once  restored 
the  confidence  and  pleasure  of  imparting  knowl- 
edge. I  am  sorry  to  have  owed  so  little  to  the 
liberality  of  Williams  College,  but  if  I  can  make  it 
owe  something  to  me,  that  is  still  better.  The  years 
during  which  I  have  held  the  professorship  have 
been  as  fruitful  in  study  and  in  new  ideas  as  any 


74         Things  Learned  by  Living 

years  that  have  gone  before  them.  I  have  intro- 
duced aesthetics  and  English  literature  and  now 
sociology  into  the  course  of  instruction  at  Williams 
and,  to  my  thinking,  the  last  addition  should  be 
the  most  significant  of  all.  Sociology  has  not  yet 
won  in  colleges  the  position  it  is  bound  to  ac- 
quire, not  so  much  as  a  new  science  as  in  furnishing 
the  ideas  and  motives  under  which  economic  and 
civic  principles  are  to  be  successfully  developed. 
In  1903  I  encountered  nervous  prostration  for 
several  months,  followed  for  as  many  more  months 
by  pleurisy.  The  attacks  were  severe  and  the 
recovery  has  been  tedious.  Now,  in  my  ninth 
decade,  I  am  in  enjoyable  health,  though  feeling 
constantly  that  the  coin  in  hand  is  nearly  all  spent : 
I  wait  trustfully  for  a  new  allowance.  Let  God's 
providence  remain  such  as  it  always  has  been  and 
I  am  content. 


CHAPTER  II 

HEALTH 

'"THERE  is  no  term  in  life  which  is  more  simply 
and  directly  good  in  itself,  and  none  which  is 
a  more  immediate  preparation  for  other  blessings, 
than  health.  It  is  difficult  for  any  accumulation 
of  misfortunes  to  overcome  the  buoyancy  of  perfect 
health,  and  no  multiplication  of  gifts  can  lift  alto- 
gether the  depression  of  ill  health.  The  most 
immediate  exercise  of  reason  lies  in  the  govern- 
ment and  nurture  of  the  body.  It  is  astonishing 
how  slowly  reason  asserts  itself  at  this  point,  how 
easily  it  is  defeated  in  its  purposes  and  disparaged 
in  its  authority.  The  mass  of  men,  even  of  intel- 
ligent men,  treat  their  bodies  as  if  they  were  a 
kind  of  mysterious,  supernatural,  self-regulating 
mechanism,  put  at  their  disposal  for  a  fixed  period. 
In  behalf  of  indolence,  appetite,  or  ambition,  they 
overlook  the  obvious  sequences  of  cause  and  effect, 
and  act  as  if  the  conditions  of  physical  strength 
were  arbitrary  or  indeterminate  or  capricious ;  as 
if  circumspection  were  a  kind  of  feebleness  from 

75 


76         Things  Learned  by  Living 

which  a  strong  man  may  well  excuse  himself. 
This  stupid  disregard  of  hygiene  is  often  associated 
with  a  trust  in  medicine  still  more  astonishing. 
Remedies,  whose  relation  to  health  no  human 
being  can  expound,  are  made  to  take  the  place  of 
the  most  obvious  measures  of  self-control.  The 
terms  of  wise  action  are  hopelessly  confounded. 
Reason  beats  a  retreat  in  the  government  of  its 
own  most  immediate  household.  The  wisdom  of 
the  valetudinarian  is  slowly  gained  amid  the 
crotchets  of  baseless  opinion,  the  insensate  con- 
cessions to  appetite,  and  the  fanciful  remedies 
of  sheer  quackery.  Thus  partial  deprivation  of 
health  often  becomes  its  best  friend,  and  full 
enjoyment  its  most  dangerous  enemy.  If  one 
wishes  proof  that  man  is  only  in  a  very  limited 
degree  rational,  where  he  touches  the  secrets  of 
his  own  life,  he  may  find  it  in  medical  advertise- 
ments, which  are  as  much  an  effrontery  to  common 
sense  as  were  ever  charms  and  love  potions  and 
an  evil  eye. 

My  experience  in  matters  of  health  has  had  some 
instruction  and  some  encouragement  worth  giving. 
On  a  purely  appetitive  basis,  a  somewhat  stern 
temperance  is  the  law  of  highest  pleasure.  The 
appetite  is  thus  maintained  at  the  maximum  point 
of  enjoyment,  and  neither  undermines  its  own 


Health  77 

pleasure  nor  other  pleasures.  I  envy  no  man  the 
delights  he  has  derived  from  any  excesses  of  indulg- 
ence, even  the  slightest.  Some  men  doubtless  re- 
ceive very  sensible  pleasure  from  the  use  of  tobacco 
— a  habit,  it  seems  to  me,  most  unfortunate  in  its 
physical,  social,  aesthetical,  and  spiritual  affilia- 
tions— but  I  wholly  disbelieve  that  the  balance, 
even  of  physical  enjoyment,  lies  in  this  direction. 
This  habit  so  narrows  in  other  more  just  appetites, 
creates  so  many  cravings,  imposes  so  many  incon- 
veniences, offers  so  many  offenses,  brings  such 
frequent  retribution,  and  so  obviously  falls  off  from 
the  higher  standards  of  self  government,  that  the 
wise  man,  who  has  not  been  subdued  to  it  intel- 
lectually, as  well  as  physically,  will  pronounce 
against  the  habit  on  the  ground  of  wide  and  well- 
ordered  pleasures.  I  have  never  regretted  from 
any  point  of  view  any  act  of  temperance.  I  have 
regretted  from  every  point  of  view  any  excess  of 
appetite.  Our  physical  sensibilities  are  the  very 
garden  of  reason,  and  its  thrift,  beauty,  and  fra- 
grance demand  the  most  delicate  taste  and  tender 
cultivation. 

I  was  endowed  with  a  sound,  physical  constitu- 
tion, but  not  a  vigorous  one.  I  was  never  able  to 
generate  as  much  nervous  energy  as  my  physical  or 
my  intellectual  activity  called  for;  I  was  constantly 


78         Things  Learned  by  Living 

threatened  either  with  a  prostration  of  the  entire 
nervous  system,  or  of  some  portion  of  it.  The 
force  and  tone  of  consciousness  are  largely  deter- 
mined by  this  portion  of  our  constitution.  The 
world  that  niters  in  to  us  through  an  irritable  me- 
dium is  very  different  from  the  world  that  enters 
by  a  reposeful  one.  A  tinge  of  color  in  the  glass 
through  which  we  are  looking  may  make  the  most 
peaceful  sky  seem  threatening.  Without  assent- 
ing to  any  identification  of  the  higher  life  with  its 
physical  conditions,  we  must  grant  that  the  prob- 
lems of  life  are  much  altered  by  the  terms  under 
which  they  are  thus  expressed.  The  texture  of  the 
cloud  is  not  the  light;  but  it  intercepts  the  light, 
or  glorifies  it,  by  its  own  quality. 

In  consequence  of  these  narrow,  nervous 
resources,  I  have  pursued  a  very  sinuous  path 
between  weakness  and  strength.  Most  days  I 
have  reached,  for  a  portion  of  the  time,  the  region 
of  hilarious  life,  and  nearly  every  day  have  sunk 
into  that  of  positive  and  painful  depression.  I 
have  rarely  lost  an  entire  day  from  work;  in  my 
thirteen  years  at  Wisconsin,  I  missed  but  one 
recitation.  Yet  I  have  never  been  able  to  devote 
an  entire  day  to  work,  and  have  reached  the  limit 
of  my  endurance  with  most  of  its  hours  still  unoc- 
cupied. I  have  entertained  no  fanciful  theories 


Health  79 

nor  fallen  into  any  extreme  practices;  yet  each 
smallest  period  has  had  its  own  narrow  possibilities 
according  to  the  nervous  tone,  the  intellectual 
weather  prevailing  in  it. 

These  are  some  facts,  therefore,  which  my 
delicate  nervous  organization  has  made  plain  to 
me,  and  confirmed  by  long  experience.  One  of 
the  most  important  of  them,  sufficiently  obvious 
in  itself,  is  frequently  overlooked  in  theory,  and 
constantly  disregarded  in  physical  training.  The 
principle  is  this,  nervous  expenditure  in  mental  and 
in  physical  activity  are  additive  rather  than  com- 
pensatory. They  are  compensatory  only  to  this 
degree:  physical  action,  united  with  intellectual 
effort,  promotes  circulation  and  nutrition,  and  so 
helps  to  replenish  the  common  resources  of  the 
nervous  system.  Diversity  in  the  form  of  effort  is 
better  for  health,  and  so  for  each  form,  than  is 
concentrated  exertion.  But  all  exertion  is  expen- 
diture, and  must  be  treated  as  expenditure.  A 
tired  body  is  no  preparation  for  an  active  brain. 
Nor  can  a  weary  brain  be  resuscitated  by  physical 
effort.  Large  stores  of  nerve  energy  may  disguise 
this  relation ;  they  do  not  alter  it. 

It  follows,  therefore,  that  one  must  choose 
between  highly  organized  brain  action,  and  in- 
tensely developed  physical  powers.  To  attempt 


8o         Things  Learned  by  Living 

to  add  the  one  to  the  other  is  to  endanger  both. 
One  may  cultivate  both  in  moderation,  but  the 
double  training  will  prevent  the  highest  develop- 
ment of  either.  The  only  limit  to  this  assertion 
is  that  there  must  be  sufficient  variety  in  our 
action  to  maintain  nutrition.  The  ruling  fact 
remains,  however;  intense,  mental  activity  tends 
to  engross  nervous  energy,  and  must  be  allowed 
to  do  so.  Physical  exertion  does  the  same  thing 
in  a  less  degree,  and  must  be  granted  the  same 
indulgence.  The  proper  resuscitation  in  both 
cases  is  rest. 

College  games  that  aim  at  a  powerful  physical 
organization,  and  subject  that  organization  to 
great  strain  under  the  idea  that  the  body  will  thus 
become  a  better  instrument  of  the  mind  are  a 
serious  mistake.  All  unusual  powers  of  the  body 
or  of  the  mind  are  cultivated  somewhat  at  the 
expense  of  other  powers,  and  help  to  consume  the 
common  energy.  I  have  found  the  principle 
involved  in  these  statements  undeniably  true  in 
my  own  experience,  and  have  had  occasion  to 
observe  it  in  the  experience  of  others.  One  may 
be  a  leader  in  boat  races  in  college  and  still  show, 
as  compared  with  one  of  very  ordinary  physical 
strength,  much  less  ability  to  bear  protracted 
mental  effort.  If  college  students  choose  to  enter 


Health  81 

the  arena  for  the  amusement  of  the  public,  the 
reasons  by  which  they  justify  their  choice  should 
rest  on  physical  grounds.  They  deceive  them- 
selves, if  they  suppose  the  best  outlay  of  physical 
energy  prepares  the  way  for  kindred  mental  power. 
A  transfer  of  strength  from  the  physical  to  the 
mental  world  is  not  found  among  the  ready  con- 
versions of  force;  and  the  multiplication  of  force 
by  such  a  transformation  is  impossible. 

The  first  marked  failure  of  my  nervous  system 
to  meet  the  demand  made  upon  it  disclosed  itself 
in  an  irritability  of  the  eyes.  Before  I  left  college 
spectra —  muscce  volitantes — began  to  show  them- 
selves, and  later  they  became  very  numerous. 
Though  of  not  much  moment  in  themselves,  they 
were  very  annoying  by  virtue  of  their  pertinacity, 
and  by  the  apprehension  they  occasioned.  At 
first  I  watched  them  constantly,  but  when  at  length 
I  settled  down  to  them  as  inconvenient,  but  not 
dangerous  visitors,  I  forgot  them  almost  wholly. 
When  I  returned  as  tutor  to  Williams,  I  found 
occasion  for  close  application  to  my  classical  work, 
and  this  rapidly  completed  the  mischief.  My  eyes 
soon  became  so  sensitive  to  light  that  they  claimed 
constant  and  careful  adjustment  to  it  in  all  situa- 
tions. This  lasted  for  years,  till  it  was  difficult  for 
me  to  conceive  that  light  was  not  usually  a  source 

6 


82         Things  Learned  by  Living 

of  pain.  The  feelings  that  we  project  outward 
on  the  world  for  any  length  of  time  seem  to  belong 
to  it  more  than  to  us.  On  leaving  my  college 
work,  I  gave  up  wholly  the  use  of  my  eyes  for 
reading  and  writing,  and  was  not  able  to  resume 
it  for  seven  or  eight  years.  I  then,  slowly,  in  as 
many  more  years,  regained  the  power  of  employing 
them  a  few  hours  each  day.  Of  late  years  they 
have  rendered  me  all  the  service  that  my  general 
nervous  vigor  would  allow  me  to  ask  of  them.  This 
period  of  enforced  relaxation  was  greatly  relieved 
by  the  aid  of  my  wife  in  reading  and  writing.  The 
womanly  and  divine  element  of  devotion  came  out 
in  full  strength.  This  irritation  of  the  eyes  also 
put  a  further  limit  on  all  close  and  protracted 
thought.  Any  weariness  of  the  nervous  system 
showed  itself  at  once  at  this  point.  Improvement 
was  a  very  slow  process  of  general  recuperation 
under  light  labor  and  much  outdoor  exercise. 

The  ready  collapse  of  the  nervous  system  also 
showed  itself  as  an  occasional  attack  of  neuralgia, 
in  protracted  pain  at  the  base  of  the  brain,  in  ir- 
ritability of  the  scalp,  in  sharp  intercostal  twinges, 
rheumatism,  and  sciatica.  This  dismal  array  of 
visitants  is  mentioned  simply  to  show  how  many 
spirits  of  mischief  may  be  kept  at  bay  by  patient 
hygiene.  With  exacting  ambitions  it  was  impos- 


Health  83 

sible  for  me  not  to  find,  at  some  early  moment,  the 
limits  of  strength;  and  having  once  found  them, 
I  was  never  able  to  retire  from  them  by  any  con- 
siderable space  or  for  any  considerable  period,  but 
I  was  able,  by  uniform  temperance,  wholesome 
food,  and  much  exercise,  to  force  back  defeat  during 
a  long  and  not  unhappy  life.  I  was  a  foot  pas- 
senger, harassed  by  a  half  dozen  wolves  howling 
in  the  rear;  yet  they  drew  sullenly  back  when 
firmly  confronted. 

The  point  at  which  I  have  found  it  most  difficult 
to  discover  and  to  maintain  a  wise  equilibrium  has 
been  in  the  balance  of  physical  and  mental  activity. 
Both  were  congenial  to  me.  If  I  had  been  content 
to  sacrifice  intellectual  work,  I  should  have  at- 
tained comparatively  robust  health.  Study  has 
always  exhausted  my  nervous  energy  three  times 
more  rapidly  than  muscular  effort.  I  have  been 
slow  to  learn  that  outdoor  air,  with  slight  exertion, 
is  the  proper  corrective  of  mental  fatigue.  I  have 
been  tempted  to  use  at  once  any  remainder  of 
strength  in  active  labor — in  itself  pleasant  to  me, 
and  sustaining  that  hereditary  and  acquired  sense 
of  the  useful,  which  has  often  ruled  my  feelings 
in  the  very  face  of  my  judgment.  Vacations, 
entirely  free  from  mental  labor,  may  be  devoted 
to  active  physical  effort,  but  even  then  great  care 


84         Things  Learned  by  Living 

is  needed  in  making  the  transition  from  thought  to 
work,  and  back  again  from  work  to  thought.  The 
opening  of  a  term  was  often  accompanied  by  severe 
attacks  of  nervous  prostration.  The  fall  term  in 
college  frequently  brings  with  it  more  than  the 
average  number  of  sudden  failures,  due,  I  think, 
to  a  violent  change  of  habit. 

The  productive  conditions  of  the  world  are  so 
tyrannical  as  to  render  the  demand  on  us  at  once 
intense  and  narrow.  It  is  hard  labor  or  hard 
thought  that  is  required  of  us.  It  is  only  by  some 
resistance  and  much  painstaking  that  we  can 
so  complement  action  by  action  as  to  present 
some  appearance  of  harmony  and  well  rounded 
robustness. 

Peace  is  the  most  noble  and  the  most  difficult 
attainment  of  life.  The  equilibrium  and  com- 
posure of  forces  are  their  truest  expression  of 
strength.  Time  is  a  supreme  element  in  all  con- 
siderable changes.  We  are  dropped  in  the  midst 
of  eternity,  and  yet  we  exhort  ourselves  and  exhort 
one  another  to  improve  our  time,  as  if  it  were  the 
first  and  only  thing  likely  to  give  out.  The  exhor- 
tation becomes  rational  only  by  virtue  of  an  irra- 
tional indolence  which  it  is  designed  to  overcome. 
We  may  well  be  speedy  in  making  processes  of  life 
correct  in  kind,  but  the  movement  itself  must 


Health  85 

chime  in  with  the  slow  moving  years  of  God.  The 
pace  of  the  world  is  exceedingly  deliberate,  since 
the  breadth  of  the  movement  constitutes  its  true 
magnitude.  It  may  not  resolve  itself,  like  a  falling 
stream,  first  into  drops,  then  into  vapor.  It  must 
move  quietly  and  productively,  like  a  majestic 
river,  fed  of  all  and  feeding  all. 

The  resources  of  our  individual  lives  are  in  the 
world.  We  must  learn  how  to  draw  them  thence, 
and  to  return  them  thither.  Time  must  be  given 
to  the  formation  and  correction  of  physical,  intel- 
lectual, and  spiritual  habits;  modes  of  interaction 
with  our  complex  environment.  Spurts  of  activity 
and  snatches  of  rest  do  not  suffice.  Time  must 
be  conceded  to  the  mind  to  come  into  large  posses- 
sion of  great  topics,  to  make  familiar  their  bearings, 
and  to  experience  their  diversified  emotions.  Time 
must  be  granted — time  that  leaves  a  broad  and 
lengthened  trail  on  the  face  of  eternity — to  bring 
society  together  in  a  sympathetic  hold  on  truth; 
in  a  living  rendering  of  truth  under  those  affections, 
which  are  woven  into  the  complex  web  of  life,  not 
along  its  primary  dependencies  merely,  but  through 
all  the  intricacies  of  its  perfected  pattern.  A 
serene  movement  is  the  only  wholesome  one  physi- 
cally, as  it  is  the  only  sound  one  spiritually;  a 
movement  that  gathers  in,  with  fine  reconciliation 


86         Things  Learned  by  Living 

and  perfect  contentment,  the  most  manifold  and 
varied  gifts  of  God. 

An  undertone  of  disappointment  and  despair  in 
life  almost  always  arises  from  a  chord  that  has 
been  struck  awry  in  our  physical  constitution. 
Happiness  is  the  overflow  of  all  the  ways  of  life. 
Life  is  hilarity,  exhuberant  strength,  the  gushing 
up  of  the  soul  into  light.  The  darkness  of  a  somber 
day  is  the  shadow  of  some  cloud ;  the  weariness  of 
the  spirit  is  due  to  some  physical  obstruction  which 
has  come  between  us  and  the  light.  We  may  not 
have  observed  in  what  obscure  ways  or  in  what 
moments  of  forgetfulness  these  clouds  have  stolen 
into  the  sky,  but  there  they  are,  and  the  glory  of 
the  world  fades  from  us.  Life,  large  life,  always 
dips  its  web  in  purple.  We  should  remember  this 
in  making  up  our  mental  inventory  of  the  well- 
being  of  the  world.  The  working  classes  often 
have  a  serenity  of  physical  strength,  which  is  quite 
their  own.  The  discords  of  transgression  have  not 
gotten,  in  anything  like  the  same  degree,  into  the 
simple  harmonies  of  their  lives.  However  cap- 
tivating the  music,  however  deep  its  inspiration, 
it  all  starts  in  a  just  and  delicate  touch  of  the 
strings  of  the  instrument  we  have  in  hand. 


CHAPTER   III 

RECREATIONS 

\  7ERY  many  put  pleasure  as  the  one  com- 
prehensive motive  of  action,  and  yet  the 
greater  portion  of  our  pleasures  arise  incidentally 
in  the  pursuit  of  other  things.  A  large  share,  per- 
haps the  larger  share  of  the  enjoyments  of  life  is 
incident  to  well-advised  work,  the  work  itself 
having  some  ulterior  end.  If  labor  in  itself  were 
simply  burdensome,  the  gains  of  labor  would  but 
poorly  compensate  it.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  has 
been  more  frequently  found  that  the  years  of  oc- 
cupation are  the  pleasurable  ones,  and  the  years  of 
repose  the  weary  ones.  Not  only  are  our  pleasures 
largely  gathered  along  the  highways  of  toil,  amid 
duties  enforced  by  stern  necessity  or  exacted  by  am- 
bitious desire,  but  also  the  additional  enjoyments 
more  directly  sought  for  are  only  in  one  degree  less 
dependent  on  labor.  Recreations  receive  their  rest 
from  labor  relaxed,  and  prepare  us  in  turn  for  its 
renewal.  Among  the  many  things  we  miss  by  a 
too  direct  pursuit,  the  most  subtle  and  evasive  is 

87 


88         Things  Learned  by  Living 

this  very  thing,  pleasure;  yet  pleasure  is  said  to  be 
the  all-inclusive  motive  of  action.  It  offers  itself 
rather  as  everywhere  the  incident  of  life,  and  is 
fully  attained  and  firmly  held  according  to  the 
measure  of  the  life  it  accompanies.  The  rhythmic 
pulse  of  well-developed  life  beats  between  day  and 
night,  wise  labor  and  wise  relaxation,  wide  effort 
to  make  the  world  better  and  a  wide  relish  of 
it  as  it  becomes  better. 

The  two  leading  forms  of  recreation  are  the 
enjoyment  of  nature  and  the  enjoyment  of  men, 
natural  scenery  and  society.  The  last  of  these 
is  doubtless  more  comprehensive  and  carries  with 
it,  in  its  higher  forms,  more  spiritual  nourishment, 
but  it  is  more  dilute  with  evil,  and  far  less  repose- 
ful. Nature  chimes  in  with  a  weary  spirit  in  a 
much  more  coy  and  restful  way  than  does  man. 
It  gives  only  as  we  are  prepared  to  receive,  and 
exacts  nothing  for  what  it  gives.  The  healthy, 
sober  pulse  of  nature  is  quite  another  thing  from 
the  fluttering  pulsations  of  human  thought.  It 
rests  one  as  the  arms  of  a  strong  man  rest  and 
soothe  the  weary  child. 

When  I  went  to  college,  I  met,  for  the  first  time, 
with  mountain  scenery,  and  it  has  yielded  to  me 
the  best  relaxation  and  the  most  skillfully  con- 
cocted cup  of  physical  and  spiritual  pleasures  that 


Recreations  89 

I  have  anywhere  found  in  life.  I  have  never  been 
in  the  presence  of  mountains  without  a  kindred 
uplift  of  feeling,  nor  climbed  to  their  summits  with- 
out a  sense  of  revelation  that  has  widened  the 
spiritual  horizon  as  well. 

The  poem  of  the  mountains  has  been  perused 
with  incessant  refreshment.  The  presence  of 
others,  with  rare  exceptions,  adds  nothing  to  the 
influences  that  steal  into  the  soul  under  the  silent 
induction  of  nature,  the  spirit  catching  a  kindred 
extension  and  tranquillity.  Starting  out  for  a 
mountain  trip,  the  spontaneous  utterance  has  been, 
"  All  day  with  thee,  O  God,  all  day  with  thee." 

The  ocean,  in  its  magnitude  and  mobile  strength, 
is  perhaps  the  most  impressive  object,  to  the  senses 
and  the  mind  alike,  of  any  terrestrial  thing.  But 
there  is  a  certain  physical  affinity  which  determines 
the  impression  we  receive  from  external  realities, 
as  there  is  a  spiritual  sympathy  which  settles  for 
us  the  connections  of  thought.  The  ocean  has 
been  to  me  an  image  of  desolation,  restless  and 
devouring.  The  seasick  body  becomes  the  sea- 
sick mind,  and  the  hovering  gulls  and  chafing 
waves  and  undying  murmur  along  the  ship's  sides 
disturb  and  torment  every  restful  instinct  in  the 
soul.  Ceaseless  and  meaningless  motion  wears 
the  spirit  away,  as  does  the  dull  mechanical  drop- 


90         Things  Learned  by  Living 

ping  of  water  the  rock.  The  refreshing  activity, 
on  the  other  hand,  of  climbing  the  mountains, 
brings  out  the  joyous,  conquering  impulses,  and 
places  life  in  sympathetic  play  with  life,  as  it 
clothes  the  broad  slopes,  gathers  under  the  shelter 
of  rocks,  or  creeps  lovingly  over  them.  The  reci- 
procities of  the  mind  with  the  world  about  us  are 
like  the  cooings  of  a  child  in  its  cradle,  a  thing  of 
sensations  and  unvoiced  affections  and  an  over- 
shadowing presence. 

There  are  three  types  of  mountains.  The  first 
and  most  familiar  form,  and  one  which  may  well 
make  up  the  staple  of  our  sensuous  pleasures,  is 
that  found  at  Williamstown — forest-clothed  moun- 
tains, with  few  bare  summits  or  ragged  flanks. 
Hills  hardly  have  the  force  of  mountains  until  they 
penetrate  the  region  of  clouds,  and  unite  earth  and 
air.  It  is  not  enough  that  the  mist,  in  rising, 
trails  along  them,  or  that  the  storm  descends  upon 
them,  they  themselves  must  be  of  the  heavens  and 
full  partakers  in  its  significant  moods.  One  must 
look  to  them,  as  the  laborer  looks  to  Greylock,  to 
see  the  predictions  of  the  weather.  If  the  day  is 
brooding,  it  must  brood  on  these  summits;  if  it 
is  gathering  storms,  there  must  be  their  rallying 
points ;  if  it  is  sweeping  together  the  tenuous  mists 
of  a  summer's  morning  to  dismiss  them,  like  a 


Recreations  91 

flock  sent  afield,  into  the  empty  areas  of  the  sky, 
the  last  visible  traces  must  lie  along  these  slopes. 
It  is  their  interplay  of  earth  and  air  that  gives  to 
the  mountains  half  their  fascination,  and  they  are 
not  mountains  unless  they  rise  with  relish  into 
this  fellowship.  Mountains  become  lines  of  meas- 
urement in  cloud  scenery.  They  help  to  define  its 
masses,  make  real  its  positions,  and  open  up  its 
spaces.  The  mind  is  thus  borne  definitely  out- 
ward and  upward  from  one  step  to  another.  The 
stability  of  the  mountains  gives  reality  to  all  that 
is  associated  with  them.  The  features  of  the  sky 
lose  their  dreaminess  and  remoteness  and  unre- 
lieved form.  The  unfailing  yet  mercurial  beauty 
of  the  heavens  calls  for  this  contact  with  the  earth, 
or  it  floats  away  from  us  and  is  lost.  Our  eyes  are 
not  lifted  to  it,  and  do  not  penetrate  it.  Sunsets, 
of  which  mountains  so  often  rob  us,  owe  their 
power  in  large  part,  to  the  fact  that  so  many  tints 
of  brilliant  color  are  poured  out  along  the  horizon 
and  thence  travel  to  the  zenith.  Spaces  are  once 
more  defined  for  us.  The  tent  of  the  sky  rises 
high  above  us,  yet  droops  everywhere  in  gorgeous 
bands  to  the  earth. 

Forest-clad  mountains  have  a  nearness  to,  a 
fellowship  with  the  forms  and  wants  of  life,  a 
clinging  to  the  earthward  side  of  things,  which  make 


92         Things  Learned  by  Living 

them  the  most  friendly  expression  of  beauty,  and 
give  them,  if  not  the  strongest,  the  most  constant 
hold  on  the  feelings.  Beauty  has  in  them  a  domes- 
ticity, which  is  found  only  here  and  there  in  nooks 
and  sheltered  retreats  of  higher  ranges. 

The  second  form  is  illustrated  in  the  Rocky 
Mountains.  We  have  in  this  type  an  elevation 
which  passes  beyond  the  timber  line,  and  enters 
the  region  of  perpetual  snow  and  constantly  return- 
ing storms.  Yet  the  summer  months  have  a  vital 
force  everywhere.  The  snow  nearly  disappears, 
and  the  spaces  between  the  timber  and  the  sum- 
mits are  covered  luxuriantly  with  grass  and  flowers. 
Though  there  are  fine  forests  and  many  plants 
along  the  slopes  and  watercourses,  the  sense  of 
barrenness  predominates,  and  a  feeling  of  desola- 
tion, as  the  ranges  are  viewed  from  their  lofty 
peaks,  clings  to  the  landscape.  Grandeur  and 
strength  and  beauty  are  on  all  sides,  and  yet  there 
is  no  predominate  force,  either  of  living  things  or 
of  elemental  energies,  which  fills  the  mind.  It  is  a 
region  of  conflict  between  the  two  tendencies,  with 
variable  results  here  and  there.  The  storms,  with 
scarcely  an  intimation  of  their  coming,  envelop 
the  summits  and  sweep  along  the  ridges.  Ascend- 
ing Pike's  Peak  I  have  been  suddenly  overtaken  by 
a  snowstorm,  seen  it  in  a  few  minutes  pass  by  me 


Recreations  93 

and  sink  below  me,  and  shortly  leave  a  long  stretch 
of  upland  glittering  in  the  sunlight  with  the  purest 
possible  mantle.  There  is  much  grandeur  in  these 
mountains,  but  hardly  the  same  sweet  peace,  which 
belongs  to  lower  ranges;  nor  the  overpowering 
sublimity  of  higher  ones. 

The  third  type  of  which  the  Alps  are  an  example, 
with  somewhat  greater  height  penetrate  to  the 
very  heart  of  strife,  and  by  their  vexing,  stubborn 
tops  create  permanent  centers  of  storm,  and  treas- 
ure houses  of  ice  and  snow.  Along  their  slopes 
and  through  their  tortuous  ravines  the  glaciers 
creep  perpetually  down  to  the  plains,  and  dissolve 
away  amid  the  affluent  life,  which  climbs  their 
sides  and  crowds  its  way  to  the  very  edge  of  des- 
olation. The  cold  streams,  which  burst  from  be- 
neath the  glaciers,  the  glaciers,  which  forever  weigh 
down  the  streams  mark  the  overlap  of  the  conflict- 
ing forces.  Summer  and  winter,  construction  and 
destruction,  the  warring  elements  that  invade  the 
open  spaces  and  the  flowers  that  spread  into  them 
wage  an  interminable  warfare,  retreating  and  ad- 
vancing with  the  rhythm  of  the  seasons.  I  know 
of  no  revivification  of  the  entire  life  like  a  long 
tramp  in  the  Alps,  whose  changes  lie  so  close 
upon  one  another,  are  so  sublime,  so  tender,  so 
instinct  with  power.  The  shifting  of  scenes  is  so 


94         Things  Learned  by  Living 

frequent  that  one,  with  any  fair  measure  of 
strength,  is  glad  to  be  left  to  what  becomes  one's 
own  sweet  will  amid  these  perpetual  enticements. 
The  method  of  movement  most  in  fellowship  with 
the  world  is  walking;  next,  but  quite  a  way  off, 
is  riding,  having  taken  to  ourselves  fellowship  with 
a  life  a  little  lower  than  our  own. 

Mountains  owe  their  first  and  simplest  power 
to  their  magnitude,  magnitude  upward,  which  most 
of  all  impresses  us.  A  more  important  feature 
is  their  combination  and  grouping.  Hills  that 
hardly  attain  the  elevation  of  mountains,  as  in 
the  Lake  country  of  England,  may,  by  variety  of 
outline,  centers  of  strength,  and  lines  of  retreat  pro- 
duce all  the  minor  impressions  of  bold  scenery.  A 
third  source  of  power  is  the  diversity  of  life,  which 
accompanies  them,  its  uplift  and  large  presenta- 
tion. The  crowning  force  of  the  mountains  is 
their  fellowship  with  the  air.  Their  summits  are 
points  of  transfiguration.  It  is  here  that  a  sweet, 
dreamy  feeling  of  victory  over  the  world  pervades 
us,  a  feeling  that,  without  separating  us  from  it, 
puts  it  under  our  feet,  and  leaves  it  floating  in 
softened  form  and  color  in  that  highest,  remotest 
sense,  vision;  but  carries  it  quite  away  from  all 
nearer  senses  and  immediate  uses.  There  are  a 
liberty  of  feeling  and  a  spiritual  tone  begotten 


Recreations  95 

at  once  of  the  freedom  and  of  the  purity  of  the 
place. 

It  is  a  great  aid  to  recreation  to  have  a  some- 
what extended  knowledge  of  some  branch  of 
natural  science,  and  so  a  growing  interest  in  it. 
Such  a  pursuit  helps  to  impart  that  definiteness  of 
aim  which  is  necessary  to  give  point  even  to  the 
pleasures  of  the  mind,  and  relieves  us  from  taking 
up  such  amusements  as  fishing  and  hunting,  which 
are  at  war  with  the  peace  and  beauty  of  nature 
and  which  appeal  to  much  lower  sentiments.  That 
a  destruction  of  the  most  sensitive  and  expressive 
objects  in  the  world  should  go  hand  in  hand  with 
our  enjoyment  of  that  world  is  a  betrayal  of  brutal 
impulses  amid  rational  insights;  a  presence  of 
Satan  among  the  sons  of  God.  I  have  found 
botany  to  fulfill  this  purpose  of  definition  ad- 
mirably. I  have  only  regretted  that  I  have  not 
made  my  knowledge  more  ample  and  exact.  Yet 
the  mind  must  be  somewhat  easy  going  in  its 
recreations. 

Two  fine  arts  blend  with  and  grow  out  of  a  love 
of  nature,  landscape  gardening  and  architecture. 
No  fine  art  unites  strong  sensuous  and  intellectual 
impressions  more  distinctly  than  architecture.  In 
the  interior  of  a  grand  cathedral,  wit  and  work- 
manship, the  subtility  of  the  mind  and  the  cunning 


96          Things  Learned  by  Living 

of  the  hand  are  at  their  boldest,  if  not  at  their  high- 
est expression.  Fine  architecture  in  fitting  sur- 
roundings is  the  most  visible  and  emphatic  example 
of  concord  between  nature  and  man.  The  enjoy- 
ment of  it  is  as  intense,  and  as  easily  renewed,  as 
is  that  of  nature  itself. 

True  recreation  does  not  so  much  recreate  as 
create  the  mind.  While  it  brings  again  to  an  edge 
the  tools  of  labor,  it  puts  labor  itself  in  a  new,  a 
larger,  and  a  better  relation  to  the  world.  We  are 
apt  to  think  of  recreation  as  something  indulged  in 
for  the  sake  of  labor ;  it  is  quite  as  just  to  look  upon 
labor  as  something  undergone  for  the  sake  of  recre- 
ation, for  a  better  grasp  of  the  emotional  world 
to  which  we  belong.  Systematic  recreation  is  no 
small  part  of  life  as  giving  illumination  and  insight 
to  its  toil.  Neither  is  well  save  in  the  full  reflec- 
tion of  the  other. 

Fortunately  more  men  find  relief  in  social  relaxa- 
tion than  in  rustication.  I  have  owed  my  habitual 
preference  for  the  solitude  of  nature  in  part  to  a 
weariness  that  grew  more  weary  among  men. 
Men  make  a  demand  that  it  requires  some  vi- 
vacity to  meet,  while  nature  steals  in  restfully  at 
every  sense,  giving  all  and  asking  nothing.  Nature 
is  the  more  divine,  the  more  creative,  the  more 
recreative. 


Recreations  97 

Society  brings  ready  refreshment  to  those  who 
love  it,  and  have  strength  to  bear  it,  but  it  leaves 
the  temper  of  thought  much  as  it  finds  it — saving 
ever  that  higher  intercourse,  which  most  of  all 
things  vocalizes  for  us  the  mind  of  God. 


CHAPTER  IV 

PERSONS 

T  SHALL  speak  of  but  few  persons,  and  those  only 
who  have  shown  remarkable  quality  and  have 
been  well  known  by  me.  My  experience  has  led  me 
to  feel  that  the  differences  in  power  among  men 
are  less  than  our  imagination  is  wont  to  make  them 
to  be.  One  who  overpasses  the  ordinary  standard 
but  a  little,  takes  a  position  quite  in  advance  of 
his  fellows.  The  limit  in  human  life  is  compara- 
tively close  and  firm,  and  to  make  a  sensible  im- 
pression on  it  becomes  a  great  feat.  Superiority 
on  the  race-course  is  an  affair  of  seconds  and  half 
seconds. 

Though  circumstances  do  not  make  men,  men 
are  much  indebted  to  them  for  the  esteem  they 
enjoy.  The  microscope  magnifies  the  object  with- 
out altering  it.  This  is  especially  obvious  when 
the  traits  of  character,  which  give  eminence,  are  to 
be  displayed  in  action.  The  war  of  the  rebellion 
produced  a  crop  of  heroes,  which  would  hardly  have 
been  grown  without  it.  In  all  probability,  General 

98 


Persons  99 

Grant  would  have  remained  an  ordinary  man  in 
men's  estimation  but  for  this  event. 

One  is  usually  intimately  acquainted  with  those 
only  in  his  own  department  of  labor.  The  phase 
of  power  they  show  is  familiar;  though  all  real 
power  has  much  the  same  inner  validity.  The 
honor  bestowed  by  us  on  high  qualities  in  public 
life  is  greater  than  that  we  accord  to  talent  shown 
in  literature,  in  the  professions,  in  business,  or  in 
invention  Yet  the  difference  is  one  of  conspicu- 
ousness  rather  than  of  inherent  strength.  Most  of 
those  who  have  occupied  public  attention  in  poli- 
tics, and  whom  I  have  had  the  opportunity  to  know, 
have  shrunk  under  near  observation  to  something 
very  moderate  in  itself,  but  magnified  because  the 
sense  of  greatness,  the  possibility  of  growth,  which 
it  imparts,  are  so  much  to  us  in  all  forms  of  attain- 
ment. The  ambitions  and  reverence  of  the  race 
attach  themselves  instantly  to  those  who  gain  the 
front,  even  by  a  little,  and  so  the  heart  of  humanity 
pushes  by  their  means  onward.  Judging  as  we  do  in 
a  narrow  and  sensuous  way,  we  are  more  quickly 
aware  of  this  superiority  in  one  calling  than  we  are 
in  another,  and  so  we  misproportion  our  esteem. 

The  first  man  of  unusual  power  with  whom  I 
came  in  close  contact  was  Dr.  Hopkins.  Dr. 
Hopkins  was  a  man  of  very  generous  gifts  in  body 


ioo       Things  Learned  by  Living 

and  mind.  He  easily  made  himself  felt  by  his 
personal  presence,  his  manner  of  expression,  and  by 
what  he  had  to  say.  There  was  very  little  passion 
in  his  address,  but  there  were  breadth  and  insight 
and  force.  Though  he  addressed  himself  more  to 
the  intellect  than  to  the  feelings,  his  words  carried 
with  them  a  quiet,  and  occasionally  a  strong, 
undercurrent  of  emotion.  He  was  never  entangled 
in  the  subtleties  of  thought  in  oversight  of  its 
practical  uses,  yet  the  uses  he  sought  for  were  more 
often  larger  uses  than  those  which  concern  some 
immediate  form  of  action.  He  moved  chiefly  in 
that  middle  region  which  lies  between  current 
events  and  speculative  discussion.  The  men  of 
action  did  not  find  themselves  much  moved  by 
him,  and  the  men  of  recondite  thought  were  not 
often  aware  of  his  presence.  While  his  chief  in- 
fluence flowed  outward  toward  the  world  of  real- 
ities and  the  nourishment  of  social  institutions 
and  religious  sentiments,  it  reached  men,  as  the 
waters  of  irrigation  reach  plants,  through  many 
secondary  and  receiving  channels. 

His  great  mastery,  and  it  was  a  notable  power, 
lay  in  putting  ideas,  moderately  profound,  so  as  to 
attract  and  to  stimulate  active,  educated  men — 
men  engaged  in  the  ordinary  pursuits  of  life,  and 
who  rise  somewhat  reluctantly  into  the  region  of 


Persons  101 

pure  thought.  He  was  a  man  of  the  masses,  but  of 
the  educated  masses,  and  only  through  them  did  he 
approach  that  deeper  and  darker  stratum  of  society 
which  bears  us  all  up.  In  lucid,  penetrative,  and 
forceful  statement  of  relatively  abstract  concep- 
tions, he  rarely  failed  of  high  attainment.  That  nu- 
merous band  of  the  best  men  who,  in  the  hard  fight 
of  life,  often  covet  a  cup  of  those  cool,  refreshing 
waters  of  truth,  which  spring  deeper  than  the 
surface,  looked  to  him  with  unfailing  reverence  and 
admiration.  Thus,  year  after  year,  his  annual  bac- 
calaureate discourses  appealed  to  the  entire  body 
of  the  alumni.  At  each  meeting  of  the  American 
Board  he  expounded  and  strengthened  those  sen- 
timents which  underlie  and  ennoble  the  great  work 
of  missions.  In  thus  uniting  the  speculative  and 
the  practical  in  an  expository  process  that  ad- 
dressed itself  to  culivated  minds,  he  found  the  path 
of  highest  service.  It  was  not  a  result,  however, 
that  he  reached  designedly  so  much  as  one  which 
belonged  to  the  very  constitution  of  his  mind.  His 
powers  of  elaboration  were  admirable  in  their  exer- 
cise. His  method  of  unfolding  and  of  presenting 
truth  was  not  primarily  a  logical  process.  He  had 
no  especial  relish  for  logic,  nor  did  he  ever  care  to 
teach  it.  It  was  not  the  skeleton'of  truth  that  he 
was  at  pains  to  construct  but  its  immediate,  living 


102       Things  Learned  by  Living 

body.  He  enriched  his  premises  with  inductive 
data,  and  did  not  expect  the  wine-press  to  yield 
wine  till  he  had  filled  it  with  grapes.  Herein  he 
showed  his  close  affiliation  with  the  practical  in- 
terests of  life.  He  did  not  weary  himself  and 
others  by  an  analytic  movement  too  narrow  in 
its  terms  to  enrich  the  heart,  but  strove,  rather, 
to  weave  thought  and  feeling  into  a  wise  compre- 
hension of  our  immediate  but  better  life.  He 
penetrated  deeper  than  the  surface  of  things,  but  it 
was  always  with  the  hope  of  striking  veins  of  pure 
water  and  giving  them  an  immediate  outlet  up- 
ward. He  did  very  little  for  truth's  sake  simply. 
He  did  very  much  for  conviction;  for  those  who 
were  to  receive  the  truth  and  to  be  enlivened  by  it. 
His  habit  of  mind  was  leisurely  and  unexacting. 
He  rarely  did  anything  which  was  not  required  of 
him  by  the  circumstances  in  which  he  was  placed, 
but  these  requisitions,  when  they  arose,  he  met 
promptly  and  fully — promptly,  however,  in  the 
sense  of  being  ready  when  the  time  came,  not  in 
the  sense  of  anticipating  it.  All  his  works  were 
the  product  of  a  specific  demand,  and  sometimes 
suffered  from  the  narrowness  of  the  occasion. 
Thus  the  Outlines  of  Man,  delivered  as  lectures, 
was  a  meager  outcome  of  fifty  years  spent  in  the 
pursuit  and  the  instruction  of  philosophy. 


Persons  103 

He  suffered  the  limitations,  as  we  all  must,  of 
a  dominant  bent.  He  was  so  successful  in  the 
easy,  critical  action  of  a  vigorous  mind;  so  enjoyed 
liberty  of  thought,  and  was  so  influential  over 
others  and  profitable  to  them  by  means  of  it, 
that  he  came  to  entertain  something  very  like 
contempt  for  hard  study  and  close  scholarship, 
as  things  he  had  not  found  necessary.  He  was  not 
a  scholar  in  any  department,  and  can  hardly  be 
said  to  have  given  himself  at  any  time  in  any  direc- 
tion to  continuous  inquiry.  He  was  a  good  gleaner, 
caught  quickly  the  reflection  here  and  there  of 
expanding  knowledge,  and  with  much  boldness 
proceeded  at  once  to  weave  these  snatches  of 
insight  into  the  tissue  of  his  discourses.  If  he 
had  lived  a  little  later,  when  the  demand  had  be- 
come more  exacting,  he  would  have  prospered  less. 
The  data  of  sound  judgment  on  social  theories  and 
spiritual  principles  are  now  too  many,  too  recondite, 
too  extendedly  historical,  to  be  reached  by  indolent, 
even  though  it  be  gifted,  observation. 

German  philosophy  he  was  disposed,  with  very 
slight  apprehension  of  it,  to  pronounce  futile. 
He  had  neither  a  bitter,  nor  an  arrogant,  but  a  com- 
fortable contempt  for  any  fruitage  in  the  intel- 
lectual vineyard  that  did  not  yield  at  once  a  full 
stream  to  the  pressure  of  thought  he  could  apply 


104       Things  Learned  by  Living 

to  it.  He  had  but  slight  sympathy  with  those 
many  painful  explorations,  that  search  for  one 
thing  and  finding  another,  with  that  mapping  of 
desert  areas  which  necessarily  accompany  all  wide 
surveys.  He  had  to  the  full  that  confidence  which 
goes  with  strong  powers,  and  those  of  us  who  were 
hard  at  work  felt  that  his  satisfaction  in  us  was 
united  with  the  least  bit  of  pity  that  we  found  so 
much  labor  needful.  He  enjoyed  the  first  fruits 
of  thought,  and  found  them  sufficient  to  meet  his 
purposes  and  satisfy  his  tastes.  For  this  reason 
he  sometimes  mistook  repellant  for  unfruitful  toil. 
He  never  mastered — few  theologically  trained 
minds  do  master — the  methods  of  scientific  reason- 
ing, and  so  was  never  prepared  to  judge  its  results. 
This  want  of  mastery  arises  from  a  want  of  fami- 
liarity with  extended  inductive  inquiry,  and  shows 
itself  in  not  feeling  to  the  full  the  accumulative 
powers  of  a  wide-spread  empirical  argument.  Who 
shall  call  himself  wise  in  these  forms  of  thought? 
Some  are  swept  before  converging  facts  as  if  the 
convictions  of  mind  were  mere  driftwood  on  the 
current  of  events;  while  others  stand  braced  in 
the  stream,  swaying  and  staggering,  determined 
to  cross  it  at  right  angles.  The  men  we  need  are 
those  who  can  unite  induction  and  insight,  science 
and  philosophy,  in  an  harmonious  whole  of  ample 


Persons  105 

rendering,  who,  planted  in  the  midst  of  the  diver- 
sified facts  of  the  world,  can  rise  above  them  into 
the  atmosphere  of  pure  reason.  Dr.  Hopkins 
did  this  in  a  good  degree,  in  the  large,  yet  restricted 
region  of  inquiry  with  which  he  was  familiar,  but 
he  never  much  increased  his  earlier  range  of  vision 
by  wide  study,  deep  speculation,  or  real  familiarity 
with  the  new  terms  of  construction  which  our  time 
is  constantly  giving  us.  His  uniform  popularity 
with  the  cultivated  and  devout,  yet  busily  oc- 
cupied, class  which  he  addressed,  was  due  to  the 
fact  that  he  stood  within  easy  range  of  their  vi- 
sion, and,  from  an  eminence,  gave  fresh  authority 
to  their  own  indolent  conclusions. 

Dr.  Hopkins  was  primarily  a  rhetorician,  yet 
a  rhetorician  of  the  noblest  order.  His  presenta- 
tions rested  on  wide  principles,  clearly  and  coher- 
ently put,  with  apt  enforcement,  and  with  no  tricks 
or  conceits  of  method.  A  sense  of  soundness  and 
breadth  uniformly  accompanied  his  words,  and 
this,  with  an  unfailing  dignity  of  manner,  built 
up  and  retained  that  very  unusual  and  universal 
respect  which  was  so  freely  accorded  to  him. 

Dr.  Hopkins  was,  in  many  particulars,  an  admir- 
able teacher,  and  the  force  and  prestige  of  this  fact, 
in  a  large  college  community  with  which  he  was 
so  long  associated,  became  very  great.  His  chief 


io6       Things  Learned  by  Living 

merit  as  a  teacher  was  that  he  went,  at  once,  to  the 
substance  of  his  topic,  with  an  animated  and  inter- 
esting play  of  thought.  He  was  quite  sure  to 
awaken  the  mind  of  the  pupil,  and  put  it  "in  act 
and  use."  He  was  formidable  in  the  recitation 
room,  but  not  in  the  least  dogmatic.  The  student, 
aroused  to  eager  inquiry,  might  catch,  if  he  were 
not  cautious,  a  ridiculous  fall;  but  he  was  never 
pushed  aside  with  mere  brute  force.  A  lively 
sense  of  humor  was  present,  if  not  to  relieve  the 
immediate  embarrassment  of  a  mishap,  at  least  to 
diminish  the  permanent  sense  of  pain.  Few  have 
equalled  him  as  a  teacher  in  a  lively,  gracious  inter- 
change of  ideas  with  those  under  his  direction,  and 
to  many,  therefore,  he  became  the  first  vigorous, 
intellectual  presence  thay  had  encountered,  and 
went  with  them,  in  this  delightful  relation,  through 
all  their  lives.  The  alumni  of  Williams  were  very 
fond  of  returning  to  a  conviction  which  President 
Garfield  tersely  put  in  the  assertion,  "A  bench, 
with  a  student  at  one  end  and  Dr.  Hopkins  at  the 
other,  makes  a  well-endowed  college."  This  was 
with  them  a  pleasant  and  dignified  casting  of  a 
rich  mantle  over  somewhat  threadbare  garments. 
That  the  method  of  Dr.  Hopkins  reached  its 
primary  purpose  with  the  majority  of  students,  is 
undoubtedly  true ;  and  that  it  suffered  some  severe 


Persons  107 

limitations  seems  to  me  equally  true.  While  many 
were  awakened  to  activity,  few  were  prompted  to 
enter  on  any  patient  and  profound  research .  Ready 
strokes  of  comprehension  were  more  current  than 
protracted  investigation .  While  the  unusual  vigor, 
which  belonged  to  Dr.  Hopkins,  prevented  degen- 
eration into  superficial  and  verbal  dialectics,  his 
bold,  self-contained  movement  anticipated  that 
assiduous,  empirical,  historical  consideration  of 
an  entire  topic,  which  can  alone  give  safe  conclu- 
sions. Here  again  Dr.  Hopkins  hit  the  cultivated, 
rather  than  the  scholarly  mind.  While  the 
alumni  of  Williams  have  gained  much  from  their 
long  relation  to  one  great  man,  they  have  also 
suffered  from  it.  Alumni  meetings  and  reunions — 
perhaps  this  is  true  of  like  gatherings  in  other 
colleges,  I  have  sometimes  feared  it  is — have  lacked 
that  clear,  breezy,  progressive  atmosphere,  which 
ought  to  be  native  to  our  higher  institutions.  I 
have  often  been  reminded  at  our  alumni  dinners  of 
the  lines, 

"  They  gently  yield  to  one  mellifluous  joy, 
The  only  sweet  that  is  never  known  to  cloy 
Bland  adulation." 

All  things  are  dangerous  in  the  degree  of  their 
goodness,  admiration  among  them. 


io8       Things  Learned  by  Living 

The  department  of  thought,  in  which  the  labors 
of  Dr.  Hopkins  were  the  freshest  and  most  success- 
ful, was  ethics.  He  presented  an  ingenious  theory 
of  morals  with  happy  points  of  construction  within 
itself,  but  one  which  fails  to  be  adequate,  because 
it  strives  to  occupy  intermediate  ground  between 
the  two  great  historic  schools  of  morals,  doing  full 
justice  to  neither  of  them.  A  more  thorough 
acquaintance  with  these  schools  would  have  led 
Dr.  Hopkins  to  see  that  they  cover  the  entire  field, 
and  that  they  cannot  be  put  together,  by  parts 
and  patches,  into  any  third  thing.  Many  others, 
however,  have  shared  this  futile  effort  with  Dr. 
Hopkins.  His  great  adroitness  was  strikingly 
shown  in  his  defense  of  his  ethical  system  against 
Dr.  McCosh.  With  the  weaker  side  of  the  ques- 
tion, he  managed,  if  not  to  win  the  verdict,  at 
least  to  adjourn  the  case. 

There  is  no  question  we  can  ask  of  more  moment 
concerning  any  man,  especially  one  in  the  position 
of  Dr.  Hopkins,  than,  what  was  his  moral  force? 
Men  in  physical  struggles  may  rank  according  to 
the  physical  powers  at  their  disposal;  in  the  con- 
flict of  policies,  by  their  intellectual  vigor,  but  all 
lower  forms  of  influence  must,  in  determining  ul- 
timate values,  be  brought  to  the  test  of  the  moral 
ideas  which  underlie  them.  No  man  can  be  wise 


Persons  109 

without  wide  moral  sensibilities;  since  it  is  these 
sensibilities  which  disclose  to  him  true  terms  of 
action,  man  with  man.  One  might  as  well  expect 
to  be  a  great  architect  without  understanding 
methods  of  construction,  as  to  be  sagacious  in 
social  renovation  without  apprehending  the  inner 
force  of  sentiments  and  the  outer  forms  of  law,  by 
which  men  are  bound  to  each  other. 

Religious  sensibilities  are  the  most  vital  and 
pervasive  which  lie  between  men.  There  are  three 
phases  of  a  positive  religious  life;  one  which 
nourishes  religious  sentiments  and  is  earnest  in 
their  propagation;  one  which  strengthens  religious 
convictions  and  is  clear  and  constant  in  their  en- 
forcement ;  and  one  which  is  occupied  with  philan- 
thropic reconstructions  of  society  and  a  fresh 
ordering  of  facts  under  them.  The  first  form 
belonged  distinctively  to  Professor  Albert  Hopkins. 
It  is  the  form  to  which  the  devout  mind  is  wont  to 
attach  the  most  value,  as  holding  in  it  all  germs  of 
propagation.  Professor  Hopkins  possessed  and 
was  possessed  by  religious  sentiments  more  pro- 
foundly and  habitually  than  any  other  man  I  ever 
met.  His  was  the  prophetic  spirit  which  abides 
in  the  region  of  spiritual  vision,  the  temperament 
which  gives  pervasive  power  to  spiritual  principles 
and  receives  constant  life  from  them.  There  was 


i  io       Things  Learned  by  Living 

always  a  movement  in  the  valley  of  dry  bones  when 
his  path  lay  through  it.  His  spiritualized  imag- 
ination at  once  knit  together  truths,  dead  to  other 
men,  in  vital  relations.  He  was  the  only  man 
who  ever,  for  a  moment,  carried  me  beyond  the 
sober  connections  of  reason. 

Dr.  Hopkins  belonged  to  the  second  type.  His 
religious  influence  was  permanent,  but  chiefly 
intellectual.  His  nature  was  not  an  emotional  one, 
and  even  when  he  gave  expression  to  pathos,  it 
carried  with  it  to  some  minds  an  impression  of 
unreality.  It  was  a  natural  division  of  labor 
between  the  two  brothers  that  when  the  elder 
had  laid  down  the  ways  of  righteousness,  the 
younger  should  compel  men  to  walk  in  them. 
Each  of  the  three  types  is  admirable,  if  sufficiently 
enlarged  by  the  other  two.  The  third,  or  active 
type,  is  the  most  divine,  if  it  is  sustained  by  wisdom 
of  thought — and  depth  of  sentiment. 

Dr.  Hopkins,  in  the  liberality  of  his  religious 
convictions,  stood  in  the  first  solid  rank  of  the 
church  to  which  he  belonged.  The  natural  free- 
dom of  his  mind  carried  him  thus  far,  while  his 
keen  sense  of  urgent  practical  interests  prevented 
his  going  farther.  It  was  rare  indeed  that  he 
either  fell  behind,  or  stepped  in  advanced  of  this 
position — the  position  of  most  immediate  honor 


Persons  1 1 1 

and  influence.  He  did  not  seem  so  much  to  aim 
at  this  result,  as  spontaneously  to  reach  it  by  a 
natural  balance  of  forces.  He  knew  very  easily 
and  very  thoroughly  the  whereabouts  of  those 
whose  opinions  he  respected,  the  movable  centers 
around  which  the  thoughts  of  men  were  beginning 
to  revolve.  His  intellectual  and  emotional  habitat 
always  lay  in  that  region.  Dr.  Hopkins  was  a 
sagacious  man,  and  sagacity,  when  it  companions 
with  devotion,  always  frequents  this  border-land, 
where  the  past  and  the  future  are  commingling. 
Studying  principles,  not  so  much  for  their  own 
sake  and  for  their  ulterior  relations,  as  for  their 
immediate  uses,  he  saw  at  once  and  felt  these  uses, 
and  was  not  easily  driven  beyond  them.  His  bent 
was  that  of  the  builder  who  knows  the  existing 
demand  and  strives  to  supply  it,  not  that  of  the 
architect  ever  rearing  in  imagination  edifices  whose 
materials  are  yet  hidden  in  the  mountains,  and 
whose  realization  no  man  asks  at  his  hand. 

There  is  here  a  discrepancy  between  our  pure 
and  our  practical  ideals,  which  shows  how  little 
men  are  at  one  with  one  another  resting  on 
the  same  organic  centers.  The  admirers  of  Dr. 
Hopkins,  and  they  were  not  only  very  many  but 
very  wise  and  very  earnest  men,  would  be  quite 
likely  to  receive  the  statement,  with  pause,  that 


ii2        Things  Learned  by  Living 

Dr.  Hopkins,  gravitated,  by  moral  habit,  into 
the  first  ranks,  but  never  took  the  position  of  a 
leader  in  front  of  all  ranks.  That  which  they 
accept  uneasily  when  offered  as  a  speculative 
theory  of  conduct,  they  especially  delight  in  when 
brought  to  bear  on  action  itself.  No  man  is  so 
honored  as  one  who  can  keep  well  within  the  front 
lines  and  yet  be  there  felt  as  a  progressive  force. 
This  method  is  the  realization  of  instant,  practical 
power.  Much  may  be  said  for  it,  and  it  may  be 
commended  on  many  sides.  Into  this  path,  the 
reason  and  the  instincts,  the  clear  perceptions  and 
obscure  feelings  of  Dr.  Hopkins  carried  him.  That 
cogent  thought  and  far-off  promise  of  the  future, 
which  are  ever  pushing  us  beyond  the  plane  of 
personal  contentment  and  social  acquiescence, 
do  not  merely  bring  immediate  discomfort,  they 
necessarily  bring  much  censure  from  the  good  men 
who  are  keeping  things  safe  and  taut.  A  sound 
philosophy  of  our  higher  life  lies  very  largely  in 
understanding  all  that  is  involved  in  these  asser- 
tions. The  inner  calling  of  a  man  is  determined 
by  whether  he  harks  before  him  or  harks  behind 
him. 

Society  is  organic  by  virtue  of  the  sympathetic 
submission  of  man  to  man,  this  imperious  control 
of  man  by  man.  If  it  were  essentially  reduced, 


Persons  113 

division  and  dispersion  would  immediately  follow. 
Some  men,  like  Edmund  Burke — and  Dr.  Hopkins 
in  his  degree — feel  these  organic  forces  in  their 
every  vibration,  and  work  as  tentatively  and 
timidly  among  them  as  the  surgeon  whose  knife 
is  separating  quivering  tissues.  Every  community 
strong  within  itself  must  have  this  conservative 
instinct,  and  also  an  equally  vigorous  progressive 
temper  to  work  upon  it.  The  one  is  vital  material, 
the  other  vital  power  The  resistance  of  conser- 
vation is  sustained  by  the  inertia  of  men,  and  by 
the  convictions  of  a  few  eminently  wise  men,  who 
fear  the  dissolving  force  of  change  on  the  safe- 
guards of  custom.  The  progressive  movement  is 
chiefly  due  to  a  few  earnest,  ethical  minds,  sup- 
ported by  the  restlessness  of  men  under  one  or 
another  evil.  Customs  and  moral  convictions  are 
the  two  contending  and  constructive  energies  in 
society.  When  these  convictions  are  clear  and 
forceful,  customs  may  be  relaxed  and  reformed; 
when  moral  judgments  are  vacillating  and  way- 
ward, the  safe  bonds  of  custom  must  be  drawn  the 
closer.  A  breaking  away  from  familiar  methods, 
when  there  is  no  supreme  sense  of  right  to  guide 
the  action,  is  the  bursting  of  water  through  the 
sides  of  the  reservoir  which  contains  it.  The 
radical  leader,  because  of  the  force,  it  may  be  the 


ii4        Things  Learned  by  Living 

sufficient  force,  of  ethical  sentiment  in  his  own 
mind,  sets  little  store  by  the  restraints  of  custom ; 
and  the  conservative  leader,  distrustful  of  the 
popular  temper,  looks  with  alarm  at  any  relaxation 
of  existing  ties.  He  has  little  confidence  in  a  suc- 
cessful replacement  of  the  old  by  the  new.  This 
balance  of  sentiments,  holding  one  another  in  check 
at  points  of  growth,  is  the  essential  condition  of 
progress.  It  is  not  easy  to  supply  either  of  them 
in  a  wise  form,  and  least  easy  is  it  to  furnish  the 
incentives  of  movement.  Whenever  this  progres- 
sive sentiment  is  present,  in  any  high  degree,  it 
necessarily  begets  antagonism.  There  is  no  pos- 
sibility of  applying  a  positive  push  to  society 
without  being  made  painfully  aware  of  its  inertia. 
There  may  be  faults  of  temper  in  the  manner  of 
doing  it  but  they  do  not  constitute,  though  they 
may  often  be  thought  to  do  so,  the  real  obstacle. 
The  chief  difficulty  is  found  in  the  unavoidable 
collision  of  tendencies:  no  amount  of  tact,  which 
does  not  smother  the  moral  forces  involved,  can 
escape  the  conflict  incident  to  growth.  The  ulti- 
mate illumination  and  correction  of  society  lie  in 
this  very  struggle  of  ideas.  The  cogency  and  the 
success  of  the  movement  are  inseparable  from  each 
other. 

Those  who  prepare  the  way  for  progress,  those 


Persons  115 

who  propound  methods  in  advance  of  the  time, 
and  familiarize  men's  minds  with  them,  have,  of 
necessity,  an  irksome  task.  They  not  only  sepa- 
rate themselves  from  the  masses  of  men,  but  also 
from  those  prudent,  successful  men,  on  whom  guid- 
ance and  authority  are  devolving.  They  sacrifice 
ease  and  honor  and  confidence  in  behalf  of  a  phase 
of  growth  not  yet  in  sight.  They  lead  the  most 
solitary,  and  the  most  useful,  lives  of  any  class 
of  men.  Their  strength  is  the  self-contained 
strength  of  convictions  held  in  close  and  painful 
conflict  with  the  doubts,  perplexities,  and  hostili- 
ties of  the  times  to  which  they  belong.  Seeking 
the  well  being  of  men,  they  would  gladly  win  their 
sympathy  and  approval,  but  they  are  forever  cut 
off  from  them  by  the  spiritual  spaces  which 
divide  them  from  those  they  would  help. 

Perhaps  the  one  thing  which  brings  most  trial  to 
social  leaders  is  the  fact  that  they  are  compelled  to 
bear  the  opprobrium,  and  that  from  the  better 
men  of  the  time,  of  being  unwise,  imprudent, 
untrustworthy  men.  They  are  the  more  sensitive 
to  this  reflection  as  it  is  the  very  thoroughness  and 
carefulness  of  their  methods  of  inquiry  that  force 
them  on  to  their  conclusions.  Because  the  new 
idea  is  a  mine  of  truth  barely  opened,  it  furnishes 
no  current  coin,  and  men  can  easily  deny  that  it 


ii6        Things  Learned  by  Living 

will  ever  do  so.  The  domineering  present  has  its 
own  way,  and  honors  those  who  have  the  compara- 
tively easy  office  of  keeping  it  true  to  its  traditions. 
Men  have  a  dull  faith  that  improvements  arise 
of  themselves  in  each  stage  of  the  world's  gestation, 
and  have  no  observation  for  the  first  filaments  of 
thought  which  precede  these  changes. 

Under  these  conditions  of  progress,  those  who 
deal  with  institutions  are  situated  very  differently 
from  those  who  deal  with  ideas.  The  latter  should 
insist  on  the  liberty  of  thought  and  keep  the  hori- 
zon clear;  the  former  must  accept  the  material 
most  immediately  applicable  to  purposes  of  sup- 
port and  construction.  Those  men  are  fortunate 
in  their  honors  and  fortunate  in  their  pleasures, 
and  render  an  admirable,  though  inferior  service, 
who,  standing  near  the  centers  of  change,  help  to 
steady,  to  restrain,  and  to  direct  the  movement. 
This  was  the  position  of  Dr.  Hopkins.  He  appro- 
priated the  conditions  of  growth,  which  began  to 
offer  themselves  so  readily  that  they  seemed  to  be 
of  his  own  providing,  and  he  directed  them  so  saga- 
ciously to  their  proper  service  that  he  appeared  to 
be  a  master  builder.  May  we  have  many  men  of 
this  especial  power,  though  not  at  the  cost  of  those 
more  penetrative,  self-contained,  and  remote  minds 
who  work  up  the  obscure  terms  of  thought  until 


Persons  117 

they  are  within  the  reach  of  the  assimilative 
processes. 

It  is  wise  to  be  satisfied  with  our  limitations  as 
well  as  with  our  powers.  The  desire  to  combine 
incompatible  forms  of  service  is  vexatious,  weari- 
some, and  weak,  and  leads  us  at  once  to  injustice 
in  our  estimates  of  men.  To  do  one  thing  well 
in  that  very  complex  and  difficult  process  by  which 
society  is  carried  forward,  even  if  it  be  nothing 
more  than  holding  fast  the  stays  which  prevent  it 
from  swerving  in  its  course,  is  quite  sufficient.  In 
the  throws  of  fortune — determined  by  the  intri- 
cate interplay  of  one's  powers  with  one's  circum- 
stances, Dr.  Hopkins  more  often  won  doublets  and 
triplets  than  any  man  I  have  ever  known.  Not 
merely  astonishing,  but  uniform  and  admirable 
success,  went  with  him  through  his  entire  life. 
The  sweep  of  his  thought  was  exactly  that  which 
enclosed  sufficient  of  the  present  and  struck  far 
enough  into  the  future  to  interest  and  to  excite 
men  without  alarming  them,  and  one  uniform 
shout  of  approval,  not  loud  but  intelligent  and 
assuring,  accompanied  his  every  effort. 

This  result  was  aided  by  a  dignity  and  com- 
posure of  manner  which  consorted  well  with  his 
breadth  of  thought.  He  was  not  a  man  of  strong 
or  impulsive  feeling,  and  was  almost  never  driven 


ii8        Things  Learned  by  Living 

from  his  intellectual  equipoise.  In  meetings  of 
the  faculty,  things  were  sometimes  said,  in  the 
heat  and  discrepancy  of  opinion,  which  were 
unkindly  and  irritating.  He  was  rarely  ruffled  by 
them.  His  self-restraint  enabled  him  readily  to 
parry  attack,  and  to  put  his  opponent  in  the  wrong. 
He  had  a  lively  sense  of  humor  and  a  cheerful, 
social  disposition,  which  rendered  him  very  com- 
panionable. His  hold  on  young  men,  and  on  men 
in  general,  became  very  strong.  His  adroitness 
and  slowness  to  commit  himself  occasionally  lost 
him  the  entire  confidence  of  the  more  enthusiastic, 
but  this  was  compensated  by  retaining  the  con- 
fidence of  the  larger  number. 

The  most  serious  restriction  in  his  influence  arose 
from  the  want  of  a  laborious,  progressive  move- 
ment in  his  own  intellectual  experience,  and  the 
narrow  sympathy  incident  to  it  with  the  advance 
of  others  in  knowledge.  Most  of  those  young 
men  who  returned  to  the  college  as  tutors  and 
professors  found  their  second  relation  to  him  less 
pleasing  than  their  first.  There  was  something 
in  the  changed  conditions  to  make  this  natural, 
but  it  arose  chiefly  from  a  lack  of  interest,  on  his 
part,  with  hard  work.  In  my  own  case,  he  soon 
lost  the  hold  upon  me  which  he  had  previously 
had,  and  might  easily  have  retained.  I  quickly 


Persons  119 

felt  that  I  must  prosecute  my  studies  independ- 
ently of  his  appreciation  A  little  belligerency  of 
speculative  thought  between  us  might  have  ex- 
plained this  in  part,  had  it  not  been  an  experience 
repeated  by  others  whose  pursuits  were  remote 
from  philosophy.  The  underlying  difficulty  in 
each  case  was  this,  his  lazy,  reposeful  strength 
rendered  him  indifferent  to  diligence  and  slightly 
scornful  of  it.  This  attitude  helped  again  to  keep 
him  in  contact  with  those  half-trained  college 
graduates  who  control  practical  affairs,  and  have 
not  much  time  or  taste  for  research;  but  it  lost 
him  any  stronghold  on  scholarship. 

During  his  presidency,  the  college  was  char- 
acterized by  a  wakeful,  effective  temper,  with 
comparatively  little  accurate  and  extended  knowl- 
edge. If  it  had  not  been  for  the  superior  personal 
power  of  Dr.  Hopkins,  this  result  would  have  been 
felt  to  be  very  unfortunate.  The  majority  of  in- 
structors do  not  have,  and  can  hardly  be  expected 
to  have,  intellectual  powers  as  vigorous  as  to  com- 
mand attention  by  their  own  movement  simply. 
They  must  supply  this  deficiency  by  extended 
acquisition,  and  the  ability  to  give  the  student 
thoroughly  the  data  of  thought.  Indeed  such  men 
are  of  great  value  in  a  college  faculty,  no  matter 
what  may  be  the  more  attractive  endowments  of 


120        i  nings  Learned  oy  civmg 

their  colleagues.  Dr.  Hopkins  was  by  far  too 
indifferent  to  the  formation  of  a  select  corps  of 
professors,  each  able  in  his  own  department  to 
call  out  and  to  reward  the  labor  of  the  student. 

Each  man,  like  a  plant  or  an  animal,  has  his 
habitat,  and  must  be  judged  in  connection  with 
it.  To  disparage  what  one  does  because  of  that 
he  leaves  undone,  or  to  extend  the  honor  of  his 
achievement  beyond  the  bounds  peculiar  to  him, 
are  alike  unfavorable  to  that  sober  thought  which 
must  give  us  our  standard  weights  and  measures 
in  the  spiritual  world.  Knowing  him  long  and 
well,  I  thankfully  accord  great  honor  to  Dr.  Hop- 
kins as  one  who  helped  to  keep  open  the  paths  of 
truth;  knowing  him  long  and  well,  I  must  also 
recognize  the  fact  that  he  was  but  an  indolent 
explorer  in  that  exhaustless  realm  yet  to  be  sub- 
jected to  us  as  the  sons  of  God. 

The  instructor  to  whom  I  have  been  most 
indebted  was  Laurens  P.  Hickok;  with  whom  I 
took  my  course  in  systematic  theology  at  Auburn. 
This  indebtedness  arose  partly  from  an  affiliation 
of  tastes,  and  more  from  his  own  great  intellectual 
and  spiritual  powers.  He  was  a  man  of  almost 
perfect  candor  and  catholicity.  The  personal  ele- 
ment disappeared,  save  as  a  warm,  genial  interest 
in  truth,  in  his  students,  and  in  their  pursuit  of  it. 


Persons  121 

We  were  received,  as  those  who  were  to  explore 
for  ourselves  fresh  continents,  into  large  and  inex- 
haustible resources  of  enthusiasm.  Doubt  and 
uncertainty  were  as  much  in  order  as  belief,  and 
the  mind  was  trained  to  take  possession  with 
cautious  conviction  of  its  own  captures.  There 
was  no  distrust  of  truth  or  of  God's  leadership  into 
it,  no  narrowing  down  of  its  range,  no  depreciation 
of  the  mind  as  an  instrument  of  inquiry,  no  dog- 
matic enforcement  of  conclusions  already  attained. 
Freedom  was  given  to  all  our  powers  in  a  large 
way;  freedom  was  felt  itself  to  involve  the  most 
undeniable  feature  in  the  divine  plan.  I  would 
place  no  light  value  on  the  honesty  and  openness, 
which  frequently  accompany  scientific  inquiry, 
but  it  is  far  more  difficult  to  secure  this  spirit  in 
handling  principles  which  intimately  concern  con- 
duct, principles  with  which  all  the  dearest  ties  of 
life  are  intertwined,  and  which  touch  facts  often 
obscure  and  remote  in  their  interpretation.  Those 
months  of  study  under  Dr.  Hickok  were  the  most 
delightful  and  exhilarating  of  any  that  I  have  ever 
known.  I  felt  the  safety  of  a  strong  man  guiding 
my  thoughts  in  new  and  bold  research. 

Dr.  Hickok  was  a  decided  intuitionalist,  and  by 
his  Empirical  Psychology  and  his  Rational  Psy- 
chology has  done  much  to  make  more  clear  and 


inmgb  i^earnea  oy  living 

convincing  the  proof  of  the  native  grasp  of  the 
mind.  To  understand  without  the  power  of  un- 
derstanding seemed  to  him  an  impossible  achieve- 
ment and  an  absurd  principle.  Whatever  haste 
and  presumption  may  attach  to  this  school  of 
philosophy,  it  is  able,  as  no  other  school  is,  to 
awaken  and  to  elevate  the  thoughts.  Dr.  Hickok 
was  an  instructor,  whose  manner  and  method  were 
wholly  enjoyable  and  he  stood  with  those,  who 
were  best  able  to  appreciate  his  power,  the  vener- 
able hierophant  of  a  perfectly  pure  and  peaceful 
spiritual  cult.  The  elevation  of  a  transcendental 
faith  gained  in  him  constant,  proportionate,  beau- 
tiful expression. 

For  a  long  time  after  I  left  the  seminary,  I 
remained  in  close  communication  with  Dr.  Hickok. 
His  cosmic  philosophy,  for  a  time,  greatly  inter- 
ested me  and  I  often  carried  my  inquiries  to  him. 
I  slowly,  however,  came  to  see — or  thought  I 
came  to  see — that  these  speculations  transcend 
the  sound  data  of  both  our  intellectual  and  sensu- 
ous experience,  and  that  they  can  lead,  therefore, 
to  no  profitable  results.  The  terms  of  thought  are 
vague,  are  expanded  under  a  highly  etherialized 
imagination,  and  leave  behind  them  no  verifiable 
conclusions.  One's  conceptions  were  an  inter- 
lacing of  sunbeams,  lost  with  each  shifting  of  the 


Persons  123 

clouds.  While  holding  fast  the  essential  principles 
of  intuitionalism,  I  turned  for  their  expansion  and 
correction  to  the  empirical  methods.  The  con- 
clusions that  I  have  thus  been  able  to  attain,  if 
more  narrow,  are  also  more  secure,  than  are  those 
reached  by  the  transcendentalism  of  Dr.  Hickok. 

Dr.  Hickok  was  strongly  influenced  by  German 
philosophy,  having  made  an  intellectual  gymna- 
sium of  the  works  of  Fichte,  Schelling,  and  Hegel. 
The  boldness  and  freedom,  which  belong  to  these 
upper  ranges  of  speculation,  were  very  native  to 
him.  In  theology,  his  opinions  bore  a  sober, 
liberal  cast  and  rendered  him  a  very  desirable 
instructor.  His  method  was  somewhat  difficult 
and  obscure  for  young  men  who  had  no  predilec- 
tions for  philosophy;  but  a  rare  love  and  reverence 
were  felt  toward  him  by  those  who  were  prepared 
to  be  profited  by  his  work.  His  life,  in  its  even 
flow  of  graces,  was  one  greatly  to  be  coveted  for 
the  children  of  God.  "  Let  the  beauty  of  the  Lord 
our  God  be  upon  us."  A  fine,  measured  spirit  of 
philanthropy  and  of  affection  was  with  him  always. 
Memories  purifying,  strengthening,  and  stimula- 
ting gather  around  him  in  all  the  higher  ranges 
of  thought. 

In  Andover  Seminary,  I  met  Dr.  Park  and  Dr. 
Shedd.  Dr.  Park  had  a  very  subtle,  analytic 


inmgs  i^earnea  oy  Living 

mind,  was  exacting  in  his  temper,  and  fond  of  con- 
trol. His  theological  system  was  so  liberal  and  so 
well  sustained  that  one  might  be  content  to  see  it 
prevail,  but  in  his  own  hands  it  carried  with  it  so 
much  of  the  stress  of  personal  feeling  as  to  give  it 
somewhat  the  effect  of  dogmatism  and  to  em- 
barrass the  mind  in  receiving  it.  He  moved  freely 
himself,  but  he  wished  his  flock  to  keep  close  behind 
him.  His  powers  were  brilliant.  An  acute  intel- 
lect and  incisive  rhetoric  made  him  formidable, 
and  he  was  not  unmindful  of  the  fact.  He  was 
willing  to  have  it  so.  His  personality  was  not 
swallowed  up  in  the  truth,  and  it  was  a  piece  of 
good  fortune  if  the  truth  was  not  swallowed  up  in 
his  personality.  It  was  quite  possible  for  his  pupils 
to  have  for  him  a  very  reverential  regard,  espe- 
cially that  portion  of  them  who  added  docility  to 
quick  apprehension. 

Dr.  Shedd  was  a  lovable  man,  but  possessed  a 
mind  that  was  a  curiosity  in  its  mediaeval  char- 
acter. The  most  extreme  views  were  held  by  him 
in  quiet  conviction,  with  complete  oversight  of  the 
outrage  on  common  sense  and  growing  knowledge 
involved  in  them.  The  realism  of  the  scholastic 
era  renewed  itself  in  this  good,  genial,  able  man, 
so  belated  in  the  world's  history.  It  was  very 
pleasant  to  come  in  contact  with  him,  because 


Persons  125 

he  was  thoroughly  a  man,  and  because  he  was  a 
revelation  of  things  that  have  passed  away.  One 
of  the  least  progressive  temper  could  hardly  believe 
in  him,  much  less  do  him  justice,  without  knowing 
him;  and  could  not  know  him  without  wondering 
how  such  insoluble  truths,  broken  down  in  his 
intellect  and  heart,  could  recrystallize  in  such  pure 
and  gentle  affections. 

Perfect  success  in  theological  instruction  in  a 
progressive  period,  and  especially  when  associated 
with  the  liberal  temper  which  characterizes  our 
Congregational  churches,  is  very  difficult  of  attain- 
ment. A  theological  seminary  must,  of  necessity, 
be  conservative.  It  stands  as  the  representative 
of  the  church  to  which  it  belongs,  and  of  the 
authoritative  instruction  within  that  church. 
Authority,  even  though  it  be  purely  spiritual, 
must  be  cautious  and  critical.  It  destroys  itself 
by  any  other  attitude.  Unitarianism  has  too  dis- 
persive and  rare  an  atmosphere  to  retain  its  own 
strength.  Religion  is  not  simply  a  theory  of  truth, 
but  conclusions  deeply  implanted  in  the  popular 
mind  with  the  sentiments  and  actions  which 
accompany  and  sustain  them.  Faith  cannot 
change  more  rapidly  than  life  changes,  without 
losing  its  hold  on  life,  and  missing  its  office.  Yet 
it  is  an  unmitigated  misfortune  when  the  accredited 


i2o         inmgs  Learned  by  Living 

expounders  of  a  faith  move  less  rapidly  than  the 
Christian  life  about  them,  and  weaken  truth  by 
allowing  it  to  become  antiquated  in  expression. 
The  truly  beneficent  professor  of  theology  lives  in 
close  contact  with  his  own  time;  is  thoroughly 
aware  of  its  latest  attainments  and  changing 
sentiments;  and  is  yet  at  one  with  that  grand, 
historic,  divine  movement  of  which  these  mani- 
festations are  only  passing  phases.  The  force  of 
the  common  life  as  it  pushes  onward,  continuous, 
irresistible  in  volume,  levelling  all  barriers  and 
filling  all  chasms,  full  of  a  momentum  that  extends 
to  every  part  of  it  should  often  be  impressed  on 
every  one  and  on  none  more  than  on  those,  who 
attempt  to  expound  the  spiritual  truths  which 
spring  from  the  insight  of  gifted  minds,  but  suffer 
the  correction  and  accept  the  uses  of  all  minds — 
perhaps  it  would  be  more  exact  to  say,  those 
spiritual  truths  which  arise  in  the  service  of  all 
men,  and  are  brought  out  in  the  clear  consciousness 
of  a  few  men.  To  stand  firmly  in  the  present, 
between  the  past  and  the  future,  with  accurate 
exposition  on  this  side  and  prophetic  vision  on 
that,  is  to  be  a  messenger  of  God.  There  is  no 
position  I  would  have  more  coveted  than  that 
of  a  professor  in  a  theological  seminary.  But  I 
came  early  to  see  that  I  could  not  keep  step  with 


Persons  127 

any  church,  and  must  of  necessity  be  a  voice  crying 
in  the  wilderness. 

I  would  be  glad  to  leave  my  own  tribute  of 
admiration  and  love  to  Dr.  Bushnell.  I  met  him 
but  a  few  times  and  am  hardly  entitled  to  say  more 
than  so  many  are  able  to  say  who  have  entered  into 
his  rich,  literary,  intellectual,  and  spiritual  life.  He 
was  a  supreme  product  of  the  best  productive 
powers  of  New  England. 

The  one  man  of  all  whom  I  have  known,  who  was 
most  delightful  to  me  in  simply  personal  inter- 
course, was  Professor  Charles  F.  Gilson.  In  his 
college  course,  he  suffered  an  injury  in  the  knee  in 
wrestling.  It  became  the  occasion  of  a  permanent 
irritation  of  the  nervous  system  which  subjected 
him  to  a  life-long  discipline  of  pain  and  prostration. 
It  softened  and  enriched  his  temper,  without  dis- 
tressing or  weakening  it.  He  was  a  man  of  fine 
literary  taste,  artistic  and  spiritual  insight;  not 
over-ready  of  belief  nor  inclined  to  disbelief ;  vol- 
atile and  warm  in  sentiment,  and  with  a  sportive, 
tripping  imagination  enlivened  by  humor  and 
sobered  by  sympathy.  One  was  able  at  any  time 
to  obtain  with  him  that  most  enjoyable  experience, 
an  easy  ramble  in  the  higher  and  more  emotional 
regions,  without  being  compelled  by  any  cogency 
of  argument  either  to  advance  new  positions  or 


128        Things  Learned  by  Living 

to  defend  old  ones.  That  pushing  of  the  thoughts 
against  one  another,  which  soon  becomes  vexing,  and 
may  easily  be  narrowing,  was  {readily  escaped,  and 
the  additional  pleasure  and  comprehension  were 
secured,  which  belong  to  friends  of  like  and  unlike 
susceptibilites  who  travel  together  through  a  mag- 
nificent landscape.  So  few  can  move  in  the  spirit- 
ual world  awake  to  its  music,  and  yet  not  tensely 
strung  to  an  old  melody  and  an  enforced  measure. 
Professor  Gilson,  without  leaving  anything  to 
his  friends  but  those  bright  memories  by  which  we 
save  the  past  from  the  extinguishing  stroke  of 
oblivion,  and  stretch  our  lives  backward  under  a 
sense  of  moving  things  and  many  years,  was  ex- 
ceedingly useful  and  stimulating  in  a  wide  circle  of 
acquaintances.  We  are  so  ruled  by  that  instinct 
of  individuality  which  impels  us  to  grasp  hastily 
at  personal  distinction,  that  we  do  not  at  once 
recognize  the  beauty  of  a  life  that  flows  noiselessly 
into  the  lives  of  other  men,  and  gives  them  volume, 
depth,  and  purity.  We  may  be  more  interested  in 
the  monumental  stone  which  stands  on  the  bank  of 
the  river  and  is  soon  left  behind,ithan  by  the  rivulet, 
which  empties  into  it,  keeps  pace  with  it,  and  main- 
tains its  strength.  Professor  Gilson  was  a  con- 
stant disclosure  of  the  freshness  and  perfection 
of  an  experience,  quietly  centered  in  itself,  yet 


Persons  129 

in  eager  ministration  to  the  pleasures  of  others. 
My  intercourse  with  no  one  has  been  less  fatiguing, 
more  refreshing,  more  diversified  and  free — like 
the  following  of  mountain  paths — than  the  famili- 
arity I  enjoyed  with  him  for  many  years,  yet  years 
too  few.  The  world  is  sensibly  less  habitable  for 
me  now  that  he  is  gone  from  it.  The  ear  finds 
that  a  familiar  echo  has  become  remote  and  indis- 
tinct. The  deep  forest  that  gave  rise  to  it  has  been 
swept  away.  Blessed  is  he  who  makes  the  world 
spiritually  vocal. 

The  one  man  who  has  been  to  me  the  most 
constant,  as  well  as  the  most  intimate  of  friends, 
has  been  Professor  Arthur  L.  Perry.  Warm 
friendship  imposes  obligations  as  well  as  confers 
pleasures.  I  have  always  felt  it  unwise  to  allow 
the  formation  of  these  bonds  unless  one  could  wear 
them  gracefully  and  gratefully.  Repeated  and 
vexatious  readjustments  destroy  their  value. 
There  must  be  freedom  and  naturalness  in  them,  or 
the  compensations  multiply  beyond  the  gains. 
Yet  it  is  a  pity  that  one  should  have  no  ties  but 
those  of  the  household  and  those  of  acquaintance- 
ship. Those  of  the  household  are  too  nearly  allied 
to  personal  interest,  and  those  of  intercourse  are 
too  light  and  changeable.  Neither  quite  covers 
the  region  of  strong,  spiritual  affiliations.  The 


L,cttincu  uy 

knitting  of  friendship,  an  integration  of  the  life  that 
is  neither  imperative  nor  indifferent  is  one  of  the 
most  positive,  vital,  and  perfect  of  enjoyments. 
Yet  its  essential  condition,  no  matter  how  much 
pleasure  it  may  confer  and  how  many  duties  it 
may  impose,  is  freedom.  A  true  friendship  is  the 
spontaneous,  organic  product  of  our  better  im- 
pulses. It  grows,  therefore,  rather  than  is  formed, 
and  not  often  do  the  fortunate  conditions  of  its 
development  return  to  us  in  our  lives.  The 
attachments  of  childhood  are  accidental  and 
ephemeral,  and  in  late  periods  we  yield  our  regard 
very  gradually,  if  not  grudgingly.  We  feel  the  di- 
viding force  of  events  quite  as  much  as  we  feel  the 
uniting  power  of  convictions.  Early  manhood, 
with  its  ripening  judgments,  hearty  enthusiasms, 
and  untrammelled  action  is  the  true  era  of  ffriend- 
ship.  Young  men  of  like  spirit,  if  planted  together, 
may  grow  together,  as  interlocked  trees.  Yet  the 
simile  is  only  a  partial  one,  for  the  integrity  of 
every  strong  nature  is  too  great  to  accept  much 
modification  that  is  alien  to  its  own  type. 

Professor  Perry  and  I  spent  many  years  in  close 
contact  in  kindred  pursuits,  and  under  this  affinity 
a  friendship  grew  up  that  has  easily  borne  all  the 
strain  of  life,  and  has  been  perennially  fruitful. 
While  solitude  is  almost  necessarily  the  habit  of 


Persons  131 

the  thoughtful  mind,  it  is  a  solitude  that  may  be 
delightfully  broken  by  one  who  comes  without 
intrusion  and  departs  without  circumstances.  Nor 
is  a  close  concurrence  of  convictions  an  essential 
of  friendship.  Friendship  demands  integrity,  is 
the  product  of  entire  confidence  sustained  by  a 
general  affiliation  of  tastes. 

Professor  Perry  was  a  man  without  guile.  He 
entertained  no  devices  and  fostered  no  tricks.  The 
absolute  transparency  of  the  man  was  unusual. 
It  occasionally  laid  open  his  inner  consciousness 
too  deeply,  but  it  left  no  wounds,  no  uncomfortable 
sense  of  things  covered  up.  His  frankness  was 
accompanied  with  courtesy,  but  was  not  closely 
affiliated  with  it,  as  there  was  so  little  in  his  thought 
over  which  he  had  occasion  to  cast  this  form  of 
concealment. 

He  combined  a  very  positive,  even  dogmatic 
temper  with  one  of  much  modesty  and  deference. 
What  he  knew  he  thought  he  knew  absolutely — a 
feeling  very  common  to  laborious  and  painstaking 
minds — and  what  he  did  not  know,  he  was  ready 
to  learn  in  the  freest  way  of  any  one.  His  mental 
landscape  was  not  one  of  lights  and  shadows,  the 
visible  and  the  invisible  melting  into  each  other, 
but  one  of  well-defined  and  carefully  traced  parts, 
side  by  side  with  unmapped  portions.  The  culti- 


inmgs  ^earned  oy  living 

vated  field  and  the  open  forest  bordered  on  each 
other.  Much  as  I  regarded  him,  a  regard  that 
rarely  suffered  any  jar,  I  often  chose  to  sit  quietly 
in  the  shadow  of  my  own  thoughts  rather  than  to 
venture  out  with  a  contradiction,  a  criticism,  a 
suggestion,  into  the  sultry  domain  of  his  economic 
and  political  speculations.  No  light  touch  was 
possible,  and  a  heavy  hand  was  disagreeable  and 
unprofitable.  I  have  usually  been  ready  for  an 
occasional  struggle,  but  I  very  much  dislike  to  be 
compelled  to  contend  convulsively  for  the  very  air 
I  breathe.  Our  thoughts  thrive  best  on  the  gentle 
insinuations  of  truth,  which  neither  compel  nor 
bar  our  own  activity. 

Professor  Perry  was  the  apostle  of  free  trade,  and 
did  hard  and  successful  labor  in  Economics.  If 
one  may  desire  opinions  more  qualified  and  sym- 
pathetic than  those  of  the  Professor,  he  may  also 
be  advantageously  reminded  that  the  action  of 
society  is  the  resultant  of  opposed  forces,  and  if 
the  economist  is  to  give  his  theories  their  due  share 
in  the  final  diagonal  of  movement,  he  must  not 
hesitate  in  their  assertion,  nor  be  slow  to  put  them 
in  definite  contrast  with  conflicting  beliefs.  This 
necessity  Professor  Perry  readily  accepted,  and 
though  he  may  have  suffered  somewhat  in  his  own 
thinking  by  the  process,  he  did  the  work,  and  did 


Persons  133 

it  well,  that  had  fallen  to  him.  His  type  of  char- 
acter was  a  decided  one,  and  one  ruled  by  deep 
convictions.  If  he  had  striven  to  soften  it  to  suit 
the  tastes  of  others,  it  is  possible  that  he  might 
have  been  more  agreeable,  it  is  probable  that  he 
would  have  been  less  useful,  and  quite  certain 
that  he  would  have  been  less  a  man.  We  may  well 
broaden  our  movement,  but  for  ends  of  strength 
every  part  of  it  must  yield  concurrent  momentum. 
As  the  waves  divide  more  and  more  in  the  wake  of 
a  steamer,  so  the  expansion  of  thought  for  a  vigor- 
ous mind  lies  chiefly  in  the  rear.  It  encounters 
the  obstacles  before  it  with  a  sharp  prow.  It  is 
only  the  opinion  of  an  indolent,  purposeless  thinker, 
which  comes  gracefully  curving  downward  to  the 
perpendicular  out  of  the  sky  and  so  sends  an  even 
ripple  in  all  directions. 

In  1899,  Professor  Perry  published  the  last 
volume  of  his  history  of  the  town  and  college.  It 
met  with  severe  criticism  as  containing  matter  un- 
just and  too  personal,  especially  in  connection  with 
Dr.  Hopkins,  Dr.  Chadbourne,  and  Dr.  Carter. 
These  discussions  were  in  entire  keeping  with  the 
character  of  the  Professor,  who  was  wont  to  go 
directly  at  the  facts  without  much  regard  of  con- 
ventionalities. The  facts  have  not  been  stated 
in  all  cases  as  I  understand  them.  Dr.  Carter  is 


134        Things  Learned  by  Living 

treated  with  undue  acrimony.  The  faults  of  the 
book  are  not  to  be  explained  on  the  theory  of 
"a  softening  of  the  brain,"  but  rather  on  that  of 
a  somewhat  too  full  flow  of  Scotch-Irish  blood. 
The  general  views  of  the  purposes  of  a  college,  its 
government,  and  interior  construction  are  emi- 
nently just. 

A  friend  from  whom  I  have  been  much  separated 
but  whose  regard  has  suffered  no  languor  thereby, 
has  been  Professor  Edward  Orton.  He  was  a  man 
of  a  most  independent  but  most  gentle  spirit, 
devoted  to  natural  science  yet  ever  in  search  of 
the  clues  of  spiritual  truth ;  ready  to  believe,  yet 
finding  it  hard  to  believe  under  the  repulsion  of 
the  irrational  forms  in  which  faith  is  so  often 
offered.  Our  lives  were  enclosed  in  somewhat  the 
same  ellipse,  though  we  occupied  its  opposite 
foci.  Psychological  truths  were  of  chief  interest 
to  me,  though  I  rejoiced  to  see  them  reflected  by 
external  things  and  gathered  at  a  cosmic  center. 
Material  relations  were  his  primary  study,  though 
he  was  ever  anxious  that  they  should  become  paths 
of  light  into  impalpable  regions. 

We  began  our  acquaintance  in  our  theological 
course  at  Andover.  In  our  very  different  lines  of 
pursuit,  we  both  passed,  by  similar  divergence, 
from  the  lines  of  inherited  belief.  Meeting  but 


Persons  135 

rarely,  on  each  occasion,  we  sought  anew  our  spir- 
itual bearings.  His  generous  regard,  to  which  all 
acts  of  goodwill  were  spontaneous,  has  helped  to 
give  me  a  better  hold  on  the  trustfulness  and  rest- 
fulness  of  the  human  heart,  to  disbelieve  the 
"vanity  and  vexation"  of  life.  Is  not  this  the 
most  divine  service  any  man  ever  renders  us? 

All  along  that  dividing  line  which  separates 
friends  and  acquaintances,  I  have  found  many 
delightful  and  worthy  men,  so  many  as  to  give  but 
little  excuse  or  palliation  to  my  own  social  failures. 
I  can  only  plead  that  my  reticence  has  usually  been 
the  separation  neither  of  pride  nor  of  indifference, 
but  the  instinctive  retirement  of  one,  who  feels 
that  most  of  his  pursuits  are  removed  from  the 
immediate  interest  of  those  about  him,  and  that 
the  spaces  which  must  be  traveled  are  already  too 
wide  for  his  strength.  A  good  deal  of  the  over- 
flow of  life  arises  from  the  redundancy  of  vitality. 
This  physical  impulse  has  almost  always  been 
wanting  in  me.  The  words  have  died  on  the  lips 
because  of  the  physical  languor  back  of  them. 


CHAPTER  V 

FORMS  OF  WORK 

"""THE  chief  occupation  of  my  life  has  been  that  of 
a  teacher.  This  was  not  a  premeditated 
result,  but  one  which  grew  out  of  circumstances. 
My  preparation  and  purpose  looked  toward  the 
ministry,  and  not  toward  instruction.  The  call  to 
a  professorship  in  Williams  College,  at  a  moment 
when  its  acceptance  seemed  desirable,  settled  the 
question  of  a  vocation.  The  rough-hewn  intention 
assumed  an  unexpected  form  under  the  moulding 
force  of  events.  It  has  been  a  decided  preference 
with  me,  though  the  principle  bears  a  somewhat 
passive  and  feeble  appearance,  to  shape  my  choices 
to  conditions  I  had  not  myself  secured.  I  have 
not  liked  to  apply  for  places  nor  to  force  results. 
I  have  loved  to  feel  that  the  shuttle  of  life  was  not 
driven  both  ways  by  the  same  mechanical,  cal- 
culated stroke ;  that  it  played  between  those  wide 
providences,  which  rule  the  world  and  my  own 
immediate  purposes  under  them.  One's  lines  of 
preparation  may  well  be  definite,  but  when  they 

136 


Forms  of  Work  137 

strike  events  they  may  also  well  be  flexible  under 
these  new  forces. 

The  idea  of  "a  call"  is  a  pleasant  one,  and  not 
an  unphilosophical  one,  if  we  mean  by  it  a  willing- 
ness to  walk  in  any  open  path  which  seems  to  in- 
vite us.  That  that  labor  is  assigned  us,  which  lies 
most  directly  under  our  hand,  is  certainly  a  more 
generous  and  concessive  view  than  that  we  are  to 
pursue  unswervingly  that  which  best  pleases  us. 
Our  overruling  of  the  world,  after  all,  goes  but  a 
little  way;  and  it  is  better  to  give  ear  to  its 
intimations  than  to  wait  till  they  become  com- 
mands. Our  wills  should  guide  us,  as  the  steers- 
man his  boat,  according  to  the  windings  of  the 
channel. 

There  seem  to  me  to  be  four  primary  qualities 
in  good  instruction,  the  power  to  impart  informa- 
tion, the  power  to  guide  the  pupil  in  its  acquisi- 
tion, the  power  to  awaken  the  mind  to  a  love  and 
mastery  of  knowledge,  and  the  power  to  disclose 
the  essential  unity  and  composite  scope  of  truth. 
The  professional  necessity  sinks  from  the  first 
to  the  last,  the  personal  inspiration  rises  from  the 
beginning  to  the  end.  The  lower  excellence  can 
hardly  be  secured  without  some  measure  of  the 
higher,  and  the  higher  ceases  to  be  permanently 
fruitful  without  a  large  measure  of  the  lower. 


inmgs  Learned  oy  Living 

One  cannot  impart  information  well  without  being 
able  to  distinguish  between  central  and  circumfer- 
ential, constructive  and  incidental  facts;  and 
this  he  can  do  only  as  the  result  of  wide  insight. 
To  give  vantage  points  to  the  pupil,  to  lead  him 
to  commanding  outlooks,  is  a  first  pleasure  to  the 
teacher,  and  an  office  he  cannot  fulfill  without  very 
considerable  breadth  of  thought.  The  clues  of 
knowledge  are  discoverable  only  by  those  who  are 
wise.  An  instructive  storing  of  information,  as 
a  squirrel  gathers  nuts,  is  but  a  poor  parody  on 
the  pursuit  of  truth.  Nowhere  does  the  letter 
kill  more  quickly  and  finally  than  in  education. 
Erudition  is  the  vanity  and  vexation  of  our  higher 
pursuits,  the  much  study  which  is  not  only  a  weari- 
ness to  the  flesh,  but  ultimately  to  the  spirit  also. 

Perhaps  no  branch  of  knowledge,  in  its  acquisi- 
tion, better  illustrates  the  wrong  and  the  right 
method,  than  that  of  language — language  which 
has  so  many  conventional  intricacies  to  which  we 
can  attach  a  factitious  value,  and  language  which 
sends  so  many  delicate  fibers  into  the  fruitful 
soil  of  historic,  artistic,  and  ethical  development. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  amplification  of  thought 
can  neither  be  continuous,  secure,  nor  broad  with- 
out a  full  and  critical  possession  of  the  data  which 
are  their  proper  support.  The  vine  must  have  the 


Forms  of  Work  139 

wall,  the  tree,  the  frame ;  without  them  its  twistings 
and  attachments  become  but  a  tangle  of  hopeless 
involutions.  It  is  at  this  point  that  erudition, 
which  seems  recondite  and  remote,  may  regain 
at  once  its  footing  by  opening  up  an  unexpected 
clue  among  facts.  These,  however  out  of  the 
way  they  may  appear  to  be,  may  still  have  vital 
connections.  The  relation  of  the  two  is  simple  and 
permanent.  Knowledge  is  the  proper  food  of 
thought,  but  the  disclosure  of  mental  relations  is 
the  only  real  mastery  of  knowledge. 

There  is  a  good  deal  of  error  and  yet  more  stupid- 
ity in  the  current  tendency  to  decry  metaphysics. 
It  frequently  arises  from  a  very  vague  idea  of  what 
is  meant  by  metaphysics,  and  is  often  accompanied 
by  a  fresh  exhibition  of  the  very  fault  it  is  the 
purpose  of  the  critic  to  censure.  Metaphysics, 
as  a  philosophical  and  spiritual  rendering  of  the 
world,  needs  constant  correction,  but  it  remains 
forever  the  most  subtle  form  of  our  intellectual 
activities,  making  life  pungent,  inspiring,  and  wor- 
shipful. If  we  should  eliminate  the  reasons  of 
things,  either  in  their  more  or  their  less  obvious 
relations  to  mind,  we  should  store  empty  nuts, 
nuts  whose  shells  had  been  perforated  and  their 
life  plundered,  or  nuts  whose  shells  were  too  hard 
for  our  teeth.  That  we  should  ever  be  forbidden 


140        Things  Learned  by  Living 

the  highest  uses  of  knowledge,  because  they  are 
at  the  same  time  the  most  difficult  and  the  most 
inexhaustible  uses,  is  a  queer  consummation  of 
inquiry. 

The  function  of  instruction,  the  widest  and  the 
most  worthy,  is  the  disclosure  of  the  world  as  an 
harmonious,  sensuous,  intellectual,  and  spiritual 
product.  A  knowledge  of  parts  and  minor  pro- 
cesses has  but  a  restricted  service  until  we  are  able 
to  see  something  of  the  inner  force  of  the  one  whole 
in  which  they  are  combined.  Nor  let  it  be  charged 
up  against  philosophy,  that  its  conclusions  are 
variable  and  indeterminate.  This  difficulty  inheres 
quite  as  much  in  the  largeness  of  the  theme  as 
in  the  inadequacy  of  the  presentation;  and  this 
magnitude,  this  infinity  is  'the  foremost  medium 
of  penetrative  thought.  Would  we  complain  of 
the  clouds  that  they  come  and  go  in  so  many  un- 
definable  ways?  Would  we  sweep  the  heavens  of 
them,  or  put  blotches  of  paint  in  their  place? 

The  most  serious  evil,  associated  with  the 
present  tendency  in  education  to  special  depart- 
ments, is  that  the  immediate  uses  of  knowledge 
are  allowed  to  take  the  place  of  its  widest  spiritual 
ministrations.  The  mind  is  made  microscopic  in 
vision  and  minute  in  method,  rather  than  truly 
comprehensive  and  penetrating.  That  teacher 


Forms  of  Work  141 

alone  is  a  great  teacher  who,  with  the  outer  bear- 
ings and  sensuous  forms  of  truth,  leaves  a  vital 
sense  of  the  way  in  which  things,  events,  spiritual 
processes  flow  into  one  another,  and  together  build 
up  a  universe  of  marvelous  scope,  inextinguish- 
able activity,  absolute  unity,  and  growing  intel- 
lectual light.  Here  is  the  true  solution  of  the 
problem  of  religious  instruction.  Dogmas  of  faith, 
blazed  points  along  the  path  of  revelation  must 
forever  be  subordinate  to  the  actual,  spiritual 
world  which  receives  them.  They  may  help  us 
to  find  our  way  through  it,  but  it  is  its  own  light 
that  gathers  in  their  light  and  enables  us,  in  the 
end,  to  understand  both  it  and  them.  The  deepest, 
best  religious  instruction  can  never  be  the  enforce- 
ment of  doctrine,  it  must  ever  be  a  wider  revela- 
tion of  the  complex  world,  physical  and  spiritual, 
which  will  enable  us  to  see  how  this  world  accepts 
the  doctrines  brought  to  it,  expounds,  modifies, 
and  combines  them  into  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven, — 
what  statements  are  rejected,  what  retained,  and 
what  reshaped  by  the  flow  of  spiritual  events 
Godward.  The  best  exposition  of  faith  may  but 
vaguely  define  faith,  so  called,  and  yet  be  a  real 
and  comprehensive  deliverance  of  the  indissoluble 
interlock  of  physical  and  spiritual  forces  in  the 
universe  of  God.  Religious  instruction  must 


142        Things  Learned  by  Living 

discover  to  the  mind  the  grace  and  eternity,  the 
infinite  resources  and  irresistible  force  of  the 
divine  thought.  Reason,  immeasurable,  pure,  and 
perfect,  must  seem  to  pervade  the  world  in  urgent 
correction  of  its  evils,  in  an  hourly  disclosure  of 
the  growing  resources  of  life.  The  movement  in 
mind  and  the  movement  in  things  must  synchro- 
nize in  revelation.  This  is  religious  instruction, 
and  all  short  of  it  is  temporary,  apologetic,  frag- 
mentary. The  conflict  and  clamor  of  religious 
opinion,  like  the  collision  of  waves,  is  on  the  sur- 
face. Drop  deeper,  and  all  is  peace. 

The  antagonism  of  science  and  religion,  of 
belief  and  belief,  is  due  to  a  want  of  comprehen- 
siveness, an  inability  to  correct  conviction  by  con- 
viction, truth  with  truth,  and  to  see  that  these 
adjustments  must  forever  shift  their  form  by 
virtue  of  that  movable  equilibrium,  which  con- 
structive yet  contending  energies  are  ever  assum- 
ing in  their  onward  sweep. 

Students  accept  good  things  gratefully.  Second- 
ary faults  may  mar  a  teacher's  relations  to  his 
pupils,  but,  if  he  has  insight  and  gives  his  vision 
unreservedly  to  them,  the  deeper  enthusiasm 
awakened  will  make  light  of  failures,  or  impart 
to  them  their  own  fascination  as  points  of  broken 
color.  There  will  be  a  consensus  of  life,  like  a 


Forms  of  Work  143 

full  stream  flowing  from  the  mountains,  clear, 
vocal,  and  strong. 

Successful  instruction  in  profound  topics  is 
most  delightful,  for  it  is  the  leading  afield  and 
shepherding  eager  appetites  in  the  spiritual  world. 

Preaching,  though  a  primary  purpose,  fell  into 
the  background  in  the  actual  unfolding  of  my  life. 
I  have  preached  continuously  some  nine  years, 
and  discontinuously  some  four  or  five  years  more. 
A  want  of  continuity  is  a  great  abatement  in  the 
influence  of  sermons  and  in  their  disciplinary 
power.  I  have  never  taken  much  pleasure  in  dis- 
courses ordered  by  accident  in  the  time  and  place 
of  delivery,  and  having  no  close  connection  with 
the  general  flow  of  thought  finding  its  way  in  the 
lives  of  the  hearers.  Not  till  life  touches  life  are 
words,  the  flowers  of  life,  fructified. 

There  are  two  very  distinct  forms  of  preaching, 
one  that  assumes  an  adequate  possession  of  truth 
and  looks  chiefly  to  its  popular  enforcement,  and 
one  that  institutes  an  ever  fresh  inquiry  into  truth, 
tracing  tentatively  its  variable  relations  to  action. 
A  preacher,  whose  method  is  of  the  first  order,  will 
cheerfully  accept,  and  will  profit  by  any  amount  of 
repetition.  It  is  said  that  Whitefield  did  not 
reach  his  full  force  in  any  given  discourse  until  he 
had  repeated  it  many  times.  His  purpose  was 


144       Things  Learned  by  Living 

immediate  conquest  with  given  weapons.  The 
handling  of  the  weapons  was  the  secret  of  success. 
His  aim  was  impression,  his  manner,  histrionic, 
his  force,  the  pressure  of  passion.  Perfect  famil- 
iarity, therefore,  with  what  he  had  to  say,  and  a 
complete  elaboration  of  method  were  essentials  of 
entire  success.  What  is  called  eloquence,  both  in 
the  pulpit  and  on  the  platform,  is  more  frequently 
a  product  of  this  order.  Eloquence,  extraordi- 
nary power  in  enforcing  truth,  attaches,  from  the 
nature  of  the  case,  chiefly  to  some  conventional 
routine  of  thought.  Convictions  that  are  already 
accepted  and  need  only  to  be  awakened  in  fresh 
activity  are  its  proper  subjects.  The  office  of 
eloquence  is  to  give  sudden  tone  to  the  mind,  as 
the  energy  of  a  galvanic  battery  is  restored  by 
renewing  the  bite  of  its  liquid. 

An  inquiry  into  truth,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
predominantly  intellectual,  not  emotional.  The 
new  presentation  cannot  win  at  once  such  general 
assent,  nor  so  awaken  familiar  feelings  as  to  become 
the  occasion  of  the  stirring  appeal.  The  orator 
leads  the  masses  along  broad  and  open  highways 
rather  than  through  obscure  paths  of  exploration. 
The  occasional  discourse,  therefore,  in  order  to  win 
the  power  of  eloquence,  must  assume  the  chief 
points  of  discussion  on  common  grounds  of 


Forms  of  Work  145 

thought,  and  throw  its  full  strength  into  their  en- 
forcement. Repetition  does  not  necessarily  wear 
out  this  movement,  but  may  increase  its  dexterity. 
It  may  also  imply  a  predominant  interest  in  rally- 
ing men  to  a  standard,  rather  than  an  interest 
in  advancing  the  standard  to  some  new  position. 

One,  whose  words  are  the  fruit  of  an  immediate 
and  interested  activity  of  one's  own  mind  on  themes 
which  seem  to  one's  capable  of  fresh  and  more 
adequate  presentation,  finds  decreasing  satisfaction 
with  each  recurrence  of  effort,  after  that  effort  has 
once  prospered.  The  freshness  of  thought  is  lost, 
and  no  excellency  of  manner  comes  in  to  take  its 
place.  He  is  walking  in  the  fields  after  the  sun  is 
well  up,  the  dew  off,  the  flowers  closed,  and  the 
fragrance  out  of  the  air.  An  uninspired  memoriter 
movement  takes  the  place  of  the  eager,  animated 
vision  of  the  mind.  I  have  almost  uniformly 
found  that  the  later  renderings  of  a  subject  I  had 
once  mastered  were  unsatisfactory,  unless  a 
period  had  clasped  sufficient  to  put  the  memory  at 
rest,  and  to  leave  the  inventive  powers  once  more 
freedom  of  action.  Even  the  most  beautiful 
scenery  needs  absence  to  gain  its  hold  upon  us, 
and  to  unite  a  new  and  an  old  revelation  into  some- 
thing better  than  either.  The  constant  fading 
out  of  thought  is  necessary  to  its  restored  tension 


146        Things  Learned  by  Living 

and  additive  force.  It  is  by  no  means  a  simple 
misfortune  that  we  forget  so  much.  Forgetful- 
ness  is  like  sleep,  it  gives  a  fresh  edge  to  all  our 
energies.  The  intellectual  food  that  passes  vitally 
into  the  system  returns  to  it  not  as  food  but  as 
strength.  If  we  remembered  all  that  we  acquired, 
we  should  be  confined  much  more  than  we  now 
are  to  the  dusty  highways  of  thought.  We  should 
find  ourselves  in  the  least  interesting  phase  of 
travel,  the  wide,  well-beaten  road  that  approaches 
a  city.  It  is  dangerous  to  know  very  much  and 
to  remember  it  all.  The  mind  thereby  loses  the 
relish  of  knowledge. 

I  must  think  that  there  is  something  not  more 
rare  but  better  than  eloquence,  the  movement  of 
the  mind  of  its  own  sweet  will,  in  changeable  ways, 
through  all  the  seasons  of  thought.  The  necessity 
of  eloquence  is  put  upon  us  by  flocks  we  are  com- 
pelled to  drive  and  cannot  lead  into  adequate 
pasture.  The  eloquent  man  is  a  good  driver  of 
men. 

Continuous  preaching  has  two  felicities.  It 
demands  a  productive  spiritual  mood  and  tends 
to  beget  it.  The  mind  is  led  to  search  for  those 
clues,  by  which  things  and  events  lead  upward  into 
a  higher  life.  It  also  compels  the  preacher  to 
be  familiar  with  the  whereabouts  of  men.  He  is  a 


Forms  of  Work  147 

truly  empirical,  yet  spiritual  interpreter  of  society. 
One  of  the  worst  results  of  a  severe  system  of  doc- 
trine is  that  the  facts,  in  their  most  significant  and 
divine  import,  are  daily  over-ridden  by  a  distorting 
theory  of  them.  The  true  preacher  adds  obser- 
vation to  insight,  interprets  the  divine  word  as 
it  runs  side  by  side  with  the  divine  work  in  the 
world,  and  so  is  ever  winning  new  points  of  depar- 
ture and  return,  of  instruction  and  correction  in 
the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  If  he  is  lifted  as  on 
wings,  his  flight  is  still  from  position  to  position, 
from  place  to  place,  and  he  makes  his  home  on 
the  earth  as  certainly  as  if  he  only  hopped  along 
the  ground.  The  eloquent  preacher  renews  his 
inspiration  by  a  fresh  audience,  the  thoughtful 
preacher  by  a  new  service  to  be  rendered  to  the 
same  audience.  The  parallel  rails  which  bear 
his  car  along  are  the  inherent  relations  of  truth 
and  the  immediate  wants  of  men.  Here  lie  all 
his  demonstrations.  The  want  discloses  the  truth, 
and  the  truth  satisfies  the  want.  The  wise  engi- 
neer in  spiritual  affairs,  pressing  the  figure  a  little 
farther,  lays  down  his  road-bed  along  a  graded 
incline,  in  which  the  theoretical  and  the  practical 
so  wisely  concur  that  all  the  hopes  of  our  lives, 
like  the  burdens  of  commerce,  are  borne  by  its  ins 
and  outs,  its  ups  and  downs,  prosperously  on  their 


148        Things  Learned  by  Living 

way.  Our  immediate  march  is  made  not  merely 
toward,  but  also  in  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  We 
have  passed  the  frontier,  and  are  now  pushing 
forward  toward  its  wealth-laden  centers. 

The  preacher  is  properly  an  explorer  and  guide, 
and  only  half  does  his  work  when  he  falls  back  on 
exhortation,  no  matter  how  cogent.  Eloquence 
simply  closes  up  the  ranks  of  an  army,  whose  lines 
of  advance  have  been  determined  for  it.  The 
preacher  deals  with  all  the  sanctities  of  religion  in 
their  daily  ministration.  Some  may  think  this 
ministration  his  primary  purpose,  to  which  preach- 
ing is  only  incidental.  This  is  the  formal  order, 
but  the  inherent  relation  is  the  reverse  of  this.  The 
true  preacher  is  a  priest  because  he  is  a  prophet, 
not  a  prophet  because  he  is  a  priest.  He  ministers 
in  the  most  sacred  relations  of  life  because  he  is 
at  one  with  them  in  insight  and  temper;  because 
he  comes  forth  from  their  spiritual  penetralia. 
It  is  then  that  he  puts  on  his  priestly  robes.  In 
the  mechanical  inversions  men  are  always  making, 
they  have  put  the  priestly  before  the  prophetic 
function,  and  have  bidden  the  preacher  to  confine 
himself  to  the  routine  of  religious  thought  rather 
than  to  explore  spiritual  realms.  The  aim  is 
religious  habit,  not  religious  life,  a  repetition  of 
one  thing,  not  the  winning  of  all  things. 


Forms  of  Work  149 

The  never  ending,  never  failing  purpose  of  the 
preacher  is  to  attain,  for  himself  and  for  others, 
through  himself  and  through  others,  the  spiritual 
theory  of  life,  and  to  give  it  a  growing  expression  in 
the  actions  of  men.  This  purpose  will  result  in 
very  different  forms  of  presentation  according  to 
the  current  of  events  in  the  time  to  which  one 
belongs.  The  doctrinal  preaching  of  earlier  years 
was  not,  certainly  not  as  a  whole,  misplaced.  Men 
were  predisposed  to  a  theoretical  discussion  of 
their  relations  to  God  and  to  the  world.  There 
was  an  intellectual  and  a  spiritual  demand  at  this 
point.  They  were  doing  their  best  to  give  these 
relations  better  expression.  New  dimensions  were 
called  for  in  this  direction.  That  they  should 
partially  fail  was  a  foregone  conclusion.  The 
narrow  and  hard  forms  of  existing  relations  neces- 
sarily imparted  their  own  severity  to  the  intel- 
lectual formulae  of  them,  which  were  offered.  Yet 
the  thoughts  were  broadened,  the  feelings  deep- 
ened, and  one  great  realm  ceased  to  be  unknown 
and  untraversed.  The  new  conceptions  were 
better  than  the  old,  better  than  the  doubt  and 
superstition  they  displaced. 

In  our  time  individual  character  and  social  con- 
struction— in  themselves  inseparable  terms — are 
in  the  foreground.  The  mind  of  prophetic  in- 


150        Things  Learned  by  Living 

sight  is  called  on  to  furnish  the  clues  of  conduct, 
the  paths  in  the  social  world,  which  lead  to  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven,  as  an  actual,  a  transcendent, 
a  universal  achievement.  The  prophet — and  the 
two  elements  of  prophecy,  insight  and  foresight, 
are  inseparable — must  master  his  own  time  in  its 
relation  both  to  the  past  and  to  the  future.  Lessons 
by  rote  taken  from  the  past  lack  both  courage  and 
guidance.  The  true  preacher  is  always  bearing 
the  latest  message  in  the  Kindgom  of  Heaven, 
that  Kingdom,  whose  inexpugnable  term  is  growth, 
whose  felicity  it  is  to  maintain  the  poise  of  motion 
between  the  conflicting  temptations,  the  excesses, 
and  the  defects  of  method. 

Dr.  Hopkins  once  said  to  me,  repeating  the  re- 
mark of  a  student,  with  a  qualified  endorsement, 
that  my  preaching  had  not  a  particle  of  religious 
power.  The  criticism  no  more  implies  that  the 
preaching  was  bad,  than  that  it  was  good.  Excel- 
lent discourses,  to  a  conventional  mind,  would 
come  under  this  censure.  One,  who  is  ever  watching 
for  the  accepted  doctrine  and  the  familiar  phrase, 
who  is  steeped  in  the  commonplace  of  religion, 
missing  these  insignia  of  grace,  would  think  a 
sermon  wanting  in  piety,  though  it  were  blazing 
a  fresh  path  into  the  heart  of  truth.  The  sanctities 
of  faith  may  be  only  the  more  deeply  imbedded  in 


Forms  of  Work  151 

our  speech,  because,  like  one  at  work,  it  has  laid 
aside  garments,  which  do  but  trammel  it,  and  has 
gone  at  its  task  stripped  to  the  flesh.  When  the 
grace  of  God  is  preeminently  at  work,  men  rarely 
recognize  it.  They  may  easily  mistake  it  for  a 
Satanic  movement,  the  destructive  energy  being 
so  often  in  advance  of  the  constructive  force.  The 
very  highest  effort  of  the  preacher  is  to  anticipate, 
to  push,  and  so  to  soften  the  transitions  and  col- 
lisions of  growth.  He  is  with  God,  reverently, 
humbly,  confidently,  as  a  creator.  Creation,  rather 
than  grace,  is  the  watchword  in  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven.  Grace  only  widens  and  softens  creation. 
Creation  makes  all  things  new. 

To  push  forward,  and  at  the  same  moment  and 
by  the  same  movement  to  achieve  peace  for  one- 
self and  for  others,  this  is  the  divine  mind.  The 
Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  righteousness,  peace,  and 
joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost.  The  constant  correction 
of  our  convictions  along  all  the  lines  of  truth, 
satisfaction  in  the  concurrent  force  which  these 
lines  express,  ecstasy  in  the  manifest  command  of 
them  all  by  a  living  spirit,  this  is  the  achievement 
of  faith. 

Burke  deeply  disbelieved  in  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, yet  he  heard  with  reluctance  and  fretfulness 
the  same  opinions  expressed  from  the  pulpit.  He 


152        Things  Learned  by  Living 

wished  peace  and  spiritual  rest  in  the  house  of  God. 
A  sentiment  of  this  order  is  a  wide  one.  Men 
love  to  retire  into  their  religion  as  into  a  quiet  and 
secluded  shrine,  from  which  much  of  the  light,  and 
all  of  the  noise  of  the  world  is  shut  out,  a  place 
of  repose  and  of  renewed  resolution,  dropped  with 
its  solemn  stillness  out  of  heaven  close  by  the 
thoroughfares  of  life.  How  is  this  somewhat  just 
feeling  to  be  met,  and  yet  religion  maintain  its 
pervasive,  commanding  power?  Rest  and  spir- 
itual renovation  are  somewhat  irreconcilable.  The 
true  preacher  comes  from  a  peaceful  realm,  one 
above  the  storm  yet  in  full  view  of  it.  He  is  not 
hidden  away  from  the  tempest  in  a  cave,  waiting 
to  creep  out  when  its  devastation  is  well  over. 
He  looks  upon  it  as  that  which  expresses,  but  also 
dissipates  the  dangers  of  the  world.  He  walks 
with  God  in  the  storm.  He  wins  peace  by  a  deeper 
sense  of  the  grace,  which  moves  forward  by  calm 
and  by  storm  harnessing  them  both,  as  two  steeds, 
to  the  same  chariot. 

The  true  preacher  is  always  prophetic,  is  neces- 
sarily prophetic,  for  he  walks  on  the  level  of  events 
and  sees  whither  they  are  tending.  The  function 
of  the  preacher  will  never  wear  out,  because  he 
shares  the  divine  mind  ever  declaring  itself  anew 
in  the  progress  of  the  spiritual  world.  The  mind 


Forms  of  Work  153 

that  is  brought  into  fellowship  with  the  Divine 
Spirit,  is  ever  looking  outward,  where  the  work 
of  renovation  and  creation  is  going  on  in  its  infinite 
fullness,  variety,  and  beauty  ot  effect.  The  first 
command  carries  all  its  force  over  into  the  second 
command,  and  secures  in  it  the  entire  rendering 
of  obedience.  The  thing  done  and  the  doer,  love 
among  men  and  love  toward  God,  eternally  inter- 
pret and  reflect  each  other ;  as  image  after  image, 
in  unending  perspective,  is  yielded  in  the  heart  of 
each  of  two  opposed  mirrors,  a  single  taper  as  a 
midway  flame,  flowing  down  a  path  of  light,  into 
the  depths  of  both. 

Whatever  success  I  have  met  with  as  a  preacher 
has  lain  chiefly  in  correcting  and  deepening  spir- 
itual ideals.  I  have  always  found  it  difficult  to 
write  a  good  sermon.  The  abstract  thought  has 
won  the  mastery.  I  have  needed  the  presence  of 
an  audience  to  hold  the  mind  to  its  labor  of  eluci- 
dation and  enforcement.  Men  are  not  fond  of 
thought;  they  think  they  are  but  they  are  not; 
certainly  not  in  quantity.  One  who  measures  off 
his  truths,  as  a  linen  draper  his  goods,  with  unend- 
ing precision,  may  be  useful,  but  is  not  likely  to 
be  interesting.  While  facts  without  a  fitting  ex- 
position are  hardly  of  more  worth  than  words  with- 
out a  meaning,  men  do  not  so  regard  them.  They 


154        Things  Learned  by  Living 

accept  the  sensuous  image  even  when  its  final  pur- 
pose of  instruction  and  inspiration  is  not  sub- 
served. I  have  striven  to  lead  on,  but  have  not 
unfrequently  simply  gone  on.  Yet  it  is  in  this 
very  effort  to  turn  truth  into  a  highway  of  knowl- 
edge that  truth  most  completely  discloses  itself 
to  us.  I  have  not  been  uninstructed  and  unre- 
proved  by  my  own  preaching.  I  have  stood  with 
the  audience  in  the  presence  of  the  truth  overshad- 
owing us  all.  I  have  not  announced  truth  as  if 
it  were  in  some  way  my  possession,  but  as  that,  of 
which  we  are  together  in  search.  The  impersonal 
truth,  as  in  some  spiritual  way  gaining  a  personal 
presence,  must  be  helped  to  do  its  correcting, 
guiding,  and  comforting  work. 


CHAPTER  VI 

» 

WRITINGS 

•""THE  books  published  by  me  have  been  of  two 
kinds,  those  called  out  by  my  work  as  a 
teacher,  and  those  elicited  by  my  interest  in  the 
topics  discussed.  My  first  work  was  Political 
Economy.  In  the  second  year  of  my  tutorship 
at  Williams,  I  taught  political  economy,  using  Dr. 
Wayland's  treatise;  it  seemed  to  me  intolerably 
simple  and  primary.  A  good  college  text-book 
should  go  directly  and  concisely  to  the  heart  of  its 
topic,  and  leave  plenty  of  work  for  the  teacher 
and  the  pupil  in  enlargement  and  illustration.  It 
is  difficult  to  make  a  book  instructive  and  interest- 
ing that  is  shallow,  pellucid,  tepid,  with  but  slight 
suggestion  of  fundamental  relations.  One  need 
not  be  afraid  of  any  obscurity  incident,  not  to  the 
style  nor  to  the  method,  but  to  the  scope  of  the 
discussion.  Attention  is  always  awakened  by 
any  true  vista  into  and  through  the  topic  in  hand. 
When  I  returned  to  Williams  as  professor,  in 
1855,  Professor  Perry  was  teaching  economics. 


156        Things  Learned  by  Living 

We  found  frequent  occasions  to  discuss  the  subject 
with  each  other  and  he  urged  me  to  write  a  text- 
book. My  preparation  for  the  task  consisted 
only  in  a  fair  mastery  of  the  principles  of  economics 
as  presented  in  current  English  works,  and  the 
ability  to  put  them  compactly.  I  wrote  a  book 
not  perfectly  easy  to  use,  but  comprehensive,  con- 
cise, and  clear.  I  venture  to  call  it  clear,  though 
all  that  I  have  written  is,  to  a  very  considerable 
number  of  persons,  obscure  and  difficult.  For 
reasons  not  obvious  to  me,  they  find  it  hard  to 
keep  step  with  my  discussions. 

This  book  added  very  little,  if  anything,  to  the 
subject  as  presented  by  standard  writers,  but  it 
placed  it  within  easy  reach  of  the  teacher.  It 
opened  up  the  way  for  work  in  the  recitation  room. 
It  was  used  several  years  in  Williams,  a  short  time 
in  Yale,  and  for  a  considerable  period  in  some 
smaller  colleges.  Shortly  after  its  publication, 
a  much  wider  interest  in  economics  sprang  up. 
New  books  appeared  rapidly  and  many  easy  and 
fairly  adequate  ways  of  approach  were  furnished 
the  student.  My  time  has  been  so  much  occupied 
since  its  publication  with  other  themes,  that  I 
have  never  revised  the  book,  nor  attempted  to 
keep  fully  in  with  the  growing  literature  of  this 
subject.  Professor  Perry  soon  developed  personal 


Writings  157 

and  positive  lines  of  inquiry,  and  all  the  office  that 
fell  to  my  hasty  treatise  was  to  furnish  a  little 
nourishment  to  the  roots  of  other  plants.  Its 
composition,  however,  left  me  with  a  lasting 
interest  in  the  topic. 

The  deductive  method,  which  characterized 
the  earlier  English  works,  with  its  rapid,  easy,  and 
positive  movement,  is  very  fascinating  to  vigorous 
and  inexperienced  minds.  I  strove  in  this  book 
to  cover  the  fundamental  conclusions  of  political 
economy  and  had  the  fullest  confidence  in  their 
validity.  This  feeling  has  been  much  modified 
by  a  wider  outlook.  It  still  seems  to  me  that 
economics,  as  a  science,  is  to  be  secured  only  by 
a  close  limitation  of  the  impulses  discussed;  but 
this  restriction  must  be  accepted  understandingly, 
and  the  caution  and  restraint  it  puts  in  practi- 
cal use  on  the  principles  reached  must  be  fully 
recognized.  With  this  concession,  the  unqualified 
statements  of  economics  are  not  only  interesting, 
but  of  great  value.  When,  however,  we  come  to 
apply  them,  we  must  restore  the  phenomena 
involved  to  their  full  complexity.  In  doing  this, 
we  shall  find  that  the  demonstrative  force  of  our 
conclusions  is  lost,  and  that  we  are  in  the  midst 
of  the  very  obscure,  complicated,  and  variable  facts 
of  sociology.  '  My  later  inquiries  have  been  eagerly 


158        Things  Learned  by  Living 

directed  toward  sociology,  and  so  toward  the  con- 
ditions, which  surround  and  modify  economic 
principles,  quite  as  much  as  to  the  principles  them- 
selves. The  little  that  I  contributed  to  political 
economy  was  soon  lost  in  the  swirl  of  a  rising 
stream,  and  I  make  no  search  for  it. 

The  second  book  which  I  published  was  ^Esthetics. 
This  has  been  one  of  the  most  permanently  success- 
ful of  my  ventures.  It  arose  from  the  demands 
of  the  instruction  I  was  giving.  Kames's  Elements 
of  Criticism  had  been  associated  with  Campbell's 
Rhetoric  in  the  college  curriculum,  as  opening  the 
way  to  literary  and  plastic  art;  I  found  the  need 
of  widening  these  approaches,  and  of  giving  them 
better  support.  While  I  was  not  averse  to  a  dis- 
cussion of  the  theory  of  beauty,  I  felt  much 
hesitancy  in  touching  its  practical  applications. 
My  observation  of  art  was  narrow  and  untrained, 
and  I  very  much  needed  a  firmer  grasp  of  the 
subtle  insights  and  shifting  sensibilities  involved 
in  it.  This  fact,  however,  helped  to  save  me  from 
an  over-refined  and  supersensuous  method,  and  left 
me  squarely  planted  on  a  platform  not  too  high 
nor  too  remote  for  the  audience  I  had  to  address. 
My  later  knowledge  of  art  has  not  seriously  broken 
with  these  earlier  principles.  One  cannot  fail  to 
see  how  very  diverse  are  the  criteria  of  beauty  in 


Writings  159 

different  minds,  according  to  the  predominant  sen- 
timents which  belong  to  them.  Catholicity  in  art, 
as  in  faith,  is  difficult  of  attainment,  both  because 
of  the  great  scope  of  the  beautiful  and  because  of 
its  variable  degree  of  intensity  in  each  one  of  its 
forms.  Perversion,  the  perversion  which  accom- 
panies strong  personal  preferences,  is  inevitable. 
The  liberal,  large,  and  enlarging  refinements  of  art 
can  follow  only  wholesome,  robust,  spiritual 
development .  It  is  the  higher  forms  of  this  enfold- 
ing that  all  beauty,  in  the  very  end,  proffers  to  us. 
Only  from  the  later  eminences  of  mankind  may  the 
entire  landscape  be  surveyed.  The  variety  of 
impression,  which  belongs  to  a  world  of  such  very 
diverse  yet  mutually  penetrable  and  harmonious 
elements,  can  only  find  entrance  with  us  when 
different  qualities,  like  distinct  colors,  flow  at  once 
together  in  a  product  to  whose  composite  force 
we  have  been  awakened  by  the  experience  of  a 
life- time. 

My  third  book,  Philosophy  of  Rhetoric,  grew 
even  more  directly  from  the  tasks  in  hand.  Called 
on  to  direct  and  to  supervise  the  literary  work  of 
others,  I  strove  to  give  a  more  positive  flavor  of 
philosophy  to  rules  which  wearied  me  in  their 
routine  use.  The  book  was  fitted,  and  is  still 
fitted,  to  make  the  constructive  processes  of 


160        Things  Learned  by  Living 

thought  more  coherent  and  thorough.  This  was 
the  only  interest  rhetoric  ever  had  for  me,  that 
of  intellectual  architecture,  though  I  was  long 
constrained  by  the  force  of  circumstances  to  give 
attention  to  a  drill,  which  so  readily  becomes  irk- 
some to  pupil  and  master. 

Those  whom  I  could  most  aid  in  composition 
were  those  whose  methods  of  thought  and  expres- 
sion were  alike  immature.  The  two  processes 
could  then  grow  together  and  help  on  either  side 
strengthened  the  entire  product.  On  the  other 
hand,  ease  of  thought  and  facility  of  expression 
were  the  most  serious  obstacles  to  improvement. 
This  readiness  of  the  mind  anticipated  all  strenu- 
ous effort.  There  was  no  travail  of  spirit.  Like 
water  poured  down  an  incline,  sentiment  and 
expression  ran  glibly  on,  and  there  was  no  volume, 
no  accumulated  power,  no  backward  pressure. 
Hesitancy,  embarrassment,  inadequacy,  all  serve  to 
check  the  mind,  to  force  it  back  on  itself,  and  to  com- 
pel a  more  comprehensive  survey — the  necessary 
condition  of  more  adequate  expression.  Thought 
and  expression  are  so  complementary,  so  much 
opposite  sides  of  one  indivisible  movement,  that 
ease  and  superficiality  are  almost  inevitable  associ- 
ates. It  is  difficult  to  force  the  mind  inward 
toward  the  penetralia  of  thought,  when  the  out- 


Writings  161 

ward  doors  of  language  are  swung  wide  before  it. 
I  have  always  experienced  the  danger  of  treating 
a  topic  hastily,  in  an  inadequate  moment.  The 
road  thus  improvised  always  lay  in  my  way  when 
I  was  desirous  to  give  the  discussion  more  breadth 
and  force.  Gestation  is  once  for  all .  An  awkward 
yet  able  mind,  one  that  has  not  yet  found  itself, 
is  the  only  really  interesting  problem  to  a  pro- 
fessor of  literary  obstetrics. 

The  first  work,  which  I  published  simply  and 
singly  from  my  interest  in  the  subject  considered, 
was  Principles  of  Psychology.  Much  later,  when 
I  came  to  teach  philosophy  in  the  University  of 
Wisconsin,  I  rewrote  and  expanded  this  treatise 
that  it  might  serve  as  a  text-book.  It  always 
retained,  however,  in  the  prominence  it  gave  to 
different  subjects,  the  freedom  of  its  first  construc- 
tion. In  revising  it,  I  changed  the  title  to  Science 
of  Mind.  The  leading  idea  both  of  the  first  and 
of  the  second  volume  was  a  fuller  and  better  sus- 
tained presentation  of  the  intuitive  philosophy. 
The  trend  of  thought  for  a  series  of  years  has  been 
very  decidedly  in  the  direction  of  empiricism. 
This  fact,  though  it  has  served  to  divert  attention 
from  every  intuitive  rendering  of  the  powers  of 
mind,  rather  increases  than  lessens  the  value  of 
this  form  of  work.  The  present  fashion  of  thought 


1 62        Things  Learned  by  Living 

will,  in  time,  exhaust  itself,  and  then  the  mind, 
its  gains  secured,  will  return  to  the  corrections  and 
further  expansions  of  intuitionalism.  Science  of 
Mind  leaves  ample  room  for  all  that  empirical 
philosophy  has  established,  and  places  it  on  a  much 
wider  foundation  than  this  philosophy  alone  can 
furnish.  There  is  no  form  of  thought  to  which  I 
have  given  more  protracted  study  than  to  empiri- 
cism; chiefly  because  in  this  direction  have  lain 
the  corrections  and  enlargements  especially  called 
for  by  intuitionalism.  Yet  I  have  not  for  a 
moment  felt  that  empiricism,  by  itself  alone,  con- 
tained any  adequate  guidance.  It  is  only  as  a 
reflecting  surface  for  light  other  than  its  own 
that  it  possesses  real  value. 

The  points,  which  I  feel  confident,  with  the 
confidence  that  always  accompanies  insight,  will 
be  gathered  up  by  the  philosophy  of  the  future, 
are  the  primitive  quality  of  mental  powers,  their 
wholly  distinctive  form-element  in  consciousness, 
and  the  consequent  impossibility  of  blending  phys- 
ical and  mental  phenomena  by  any  third  fact 
termed  sub-conscious.  These  alleged  facts  are 
wholly  intangible  and  fanciful;  most  completely 
unempirical,  though  so  often  urged  by  empiricism. 
They  offer  a  third  something  between  the  phenom- 
ena of  space  and  the  phenomena  of  conscious- 


Writings  163 

ness  which  has  neither  intelligible  locality  nor 
conceivable  form.  All  phenomena  that  directly 
concern  the  mind  are  either  distinctly  neural  or 
distinctly  mental  phenomena;  the  two  are  incap- 
able of  confusion  by  virtue  of  their  respective 
form-elements,  space  and  consciousness. 

The  ruling  idea  of  Science  of  Mind  is  that 
consciousness,  as  an  ultimate  form-element,  holds 
its  own  phenomena  in  absolutely  primitive  and 
incommunicable  limits.  Subconscious  phenomena 
drop  away  as  mere  chimera.  The  subtle  and 
influential  character  of  neural  facts  are  fully 
admitted,  and  the  analysis  of  mental  powers, 
absolutely  unique  in  nature,  is  made  as  complete 
as  possible.  While  the  ultimate  paths  of  thought 
will  not  conform  to  any  one  man's  vision,  the 
spirit  of  prophecy  is  deeply  involved  in  all  clear 
insight,  and  a  possible  forecast  of  the  rational  world 
is  certainly  present  in  every  part  of  that  world. 
Let  the  light  wax,  let  the  dim  outline  become 
assured  sight,  let  the  day  spread  itself  over  fields 
that  just  begin  to  be  seen,  the  beginning  and  the 
end  will  still  touch  each  other,  parts  of  one  growing 
revelation.  The  personal  and  the  universal  will 
be  gathered  up  into  one  indivisible  product. 

Whatever  value  attaches  to  my  labor,  it  inheres 
just  here,  in  the  defense  of  the  primitive  force  of 


164       Things  Learned  by  Living 

thought,  self -directed  toward  the  interpretation 
of  ever  changing,  ever  coherent  events.  The 
event  does  not  gather  in  the  thought,  the  thought 
gathers  in  the  event.  Here  is  the  everlasting 
struggle,  equally  in  empiricism  as  in  intuitionalism. 
Here  lies  our  defense  alike  against  dogmatism  and 
scepticism,  against  a  purely  idealistic  and  a  purely 
empirical  tendency.  If  one's  thoughts  are  simply 
another  phase  of  enveloping  events,  they  can 
have  no  universality,  they  cannot  attain  to  that 
ineffable  thing,  truth.  They  remain  variable  facts 
among  facts  infinitely  variable.  If  the  mind,  by 
virtue  of  data  within  itself,  develops  deductively 
the  line  of  events,  it  is  thereby  led  to  lose  sight 
of  the  utter  emptiness  of  its  symbols,  symbols 
that  can  only  be  impregnated,  made  fertile  by 
a  universe  in  and  with  which  they  have  arisen; 
symbols  that  must  rest  back  on  some  substance 
if  they  are  to  issue  in  the  harmony  and  extension 
of  all  knowledge.  Reason,  pure,  transparent,  is 
in  its  flow  like  the  clear  stream,  which  gives  a 
mathematically  just  reflection  of  the  objects 
among  which  it  moves;  which  yet,  by  virtue  of 
shifting  banks,  shifting  days,  shifting  seasons, 
renders  nothing  twice  alike,  though  all  things 
are  in  eternal  continuity.  Philosophy,  theology, 
sociology  remain  to  be  wrought  out  under  variable 


Writings  165 

events,  never  twice  the  same  nor  twice  lying  in  the 
same  light,  yet  by  an  insight  as  certain  and  coherent 
in  its  principles  as  are  the  laws  of  color  which  at 
any  moment  rule  the  physical  landscape.  Thought 
is  no  more  disturbed  by  the  complexity  of  its 
subjects  than  mathematics  are  baffled  by  the 
multiplicity  of  the  phenomena  in  which  they  in- 
here. The  flexible  and  the  inflexible  are  the 
eternal  constituents  of  knowledge. 

Principles  of  Psychology  led  to  a  course  of 
Lowell  Lectures,  entitled  Science,  Philosophy,  and 
Religion.  These  lectures  were  moderately  suc- 
cessful in  the  delivery  and,  in  their  published 
form,  were  not  carried  beyond  the  first  edition. 
They  were  too  abstract  for  the  popular  mind. 
There  is  a  handling  of  pertinent  truth  which  is 
clear,  catholic,  and  just,  without  being  tenderly 
sympathetic.  The  theme  rather  than  the  thoughts 
of  men  about  it  occupies  the  attention.  The  air 
grows  purer  as  we  rise  in  it,  but  it  also  grows  colder, 
and  has  not  the  prolific  vital  power  of  its  lower, 
less  elastic,  and  vapor-laden  strata. 

A  second  course  of  Lowell  Lectures  was  granted 
me  two  years  later.  This  course  I  published  under 
the  title,  Philosophy  of  English  Literature.  When 
I  introduced  the  study  of  English  literature  at 
Williams,  it  was  not  often  embraced  in  college 


1 66       Things  Learned  by  Living 

work.  There  was  no  accumulated  experience  as 
to  the  best  method  of  instruction.  At  first  I 
found  it  difficult  to  arouse  interest  in  the  multi- 
plicity of  facts  embraced  in  the  few  current  man- 
uals. This  difficulty  gave  occasion  for  an  effort 
to  unite  the  facts  more  closely  in  a  succinct  review, 
and  to  give  them  somewhat  of  a  continuous,  his- 
toric, and  causal  development.  I  ultimately  suc- 
ceeded in  doing  this.  The  lectures  were  the 
fruit  of  this  effort,  and  have  been  found  useful  by 
many  teachers  in  the  same  direction.  The  work 
grew  out  of  the  needs  of  the  recitation  room,  and 
has  distinguished  itself  from  most  of  my  books  by 
being  remunerative.  A  general  survey  of  the 
facts  of  English  literature,  followed  by  a  concise 
discussion  of  their  dependence  on  one  another  and 
accompanied  by  a  study  of  leading  authors,  be- 
comes a  very  quickening  and  a  very  thoughtful 
form  of  work.  Insight  and  reflection  are  alike 
called  out.  When  the  chief  attention  is  directed 
to  a  few  classical  writers,  our  knowledge  loses  the 
breadth  we  have  a  right  to  expect,  and  may  easily 
become  a  somewhat  indolent  indulgence  of  lit- 
erary tastes. 

A  Philosophy  of  Religion,  the  next  book  that 
I  published,  was  a  spontaneous  product  of  my 
deepest,  most  habitual  experience.  I  had  no 


Writings  167 

other  purpose  in  view  than  to  render  spiritual 
truth  more  distinct  to  my  own  mind  and  to  the 
minds  of  others.  All  the  discussions  of  philosophy, 
all  the  experiences  of  life  have  had  their  chief 
interest  for  me  in  the  light  which  I  have  found 
them  able  to  cast  on  the  one  problem  of  spiritual 
destiny.  The  difficulty  of  this  problem,  far  from 
being  a  reason  for  waiving  inquiry,  has  only  been 
a  provocation  to  inquiry.  It  has  seemed  to  me 
the  natural  accompaniment  of  the  magnitude  of 
the  questions  involved.  This  is  a  region  in  which 
slight  gains  are  large  rewards;  in  which  all  times 
and  persons  gather  truth  in  one  common  treasure. 
The  movement,  like  evolution,  is  inevitable  and 
increasingly  fruitful.  Knowledge  and  achieve- 
ment are  inseparable  in  it;  we  see  farther  by 
moving  forward.  If  the  gold  of  truth,  which  with 
all  his  diligence  is  found  in  any  one  man's  sieve,  is 
very  little,  it  none  the  less  adds  something  to  the 
sum  of  the  most  representative,  permanent,  and 
enticing  of  values. 

The  movement  which  this  volume  indicates 
has  gone  somewhat  farther  in  my  mind  since  its 
publication.  The  doctrinal  and  traditional  tram- 
mels of  religious  truth  have  almost  wholly  fallen 
off,  and  that  with  no  loss  of  the  sense  of  verity, 
authority,  safety.  The  fortifications  to  which  the 


i68        Things  Learned  by  Living 

mind  had  first  turned  for  refuge  have  crumbled 
away,  but  the  feeling  of  security  has  grown  at 
every  stage  of  the  process.  The  spirit  of  power 
moves  only  the  more  freely,  and  encamps  only 
the  more  fearlessly  in  the  open  field,  the  unob- 
structed spaces  of  the  universe.  Here  alone  it  is 
able  to  say  all  is  mine.  This  volume  I  have  reason 
to  suppose  has  strength  and  arouses  in  a  few  minds, 
though  only  in  a  few,  the  same  feelings  which  gave 
occasion  to  it  in  my  own  experience.  These 
feelings,  once  called  out  are  sure  to  grow,  though 
they  have  no  occasion  to  feed  long  on  that  which 
first  nourishes  them.  The  work  is  not  addressed 
to  any  violent  or  sceptical  frame  of  mind,  but  to 
one  who  is  beginning  to  loosen,  in  many  directions, 
the  cords  which  have  bound  him  too  tightly. 

The  book  had  the  good  fortune  to  find  its  way 
as  a  work  of  reference  and  study  into  one  theolog- 
ical seminary,  a  seminary  in  which  the  traditions 
of  the  fathers  were  held  to  be  garments  which 
might  be  overworn.  As  long  as  men  are  proceed- 
ing but  slowly  in  bursting  the  present  integuments 
of  thought,  and  breaking  out  into  light  and  air, 
this  volume  may  be  helpful  as  rendering  one  of  the 
ways  in  which  spiritual  liberty  may  be  won. 

The  Growth  and  Grades  of  Intelligence — Com- 
parative Psychology — was  an  effort  to  unite  a 


Writings  169 

belief  in  the  primitive  powers  of  mind  and  their 
empirical  development  into  one  consistent  view. 
The  statement  suffers  somewhat,  as  much  of  my 
work  suffers,  from  a  too  concise  and  too  narrow  pre- 
sentation. The  voluminousness  of  most  authors 
has  been  so  tedious  to  me,  that  I  have  striven  in 
every  way  to  avoid  it.  Moreover,  the  force  of 
a  clear  conception  has  seemed  so  final  that  I  have 
not  sufficiently  felt  the  necessity  of  detailed  sup- 
port. Yet,  in  a  discussion  of  this  sort,  the  im- 
pression made  on  most  minds  will  be  proportioned 
to  the  number  of  examples  by  which  it  is  induc- 
tively sustained.  I  believe  that  the  general 
relation  of  the  several  phases  of  intelligence 
indicated  in  this  work  is  capable  of  most  adequate 
and  abundant  illustration,  and  that  the  more 
obtrusive  facts,  which  look  to  an  opposite  conclu- 
sion, easily  give  way  under  wise  and  extended 
interpretation.  My  books  have  had  many  brief 
notices,  but  rarely  one  indicative  of  any  insight. 
Praise  has  not  given  me  much  pleasure,  nor  censure 
much  pain,  since  neither  the  one  nor  the  other  has 
been  delivered  at  the  center  of  the  target.  This 
work  received  in  the  New  York  Tribune  the  most 
discriminating  review  it  has  been  my  good  fortune 
to  secure.  The  book,  though  one  of  the  best  that 
I  have  written,  has  attracted  very  little  attention. 


170       Things  Learned  by  Living 

I  have  great  confidence  in  the  belief  that  the 
forms  and  grades  of  intelligence,  as  here  defined, 
will  be  found  to  harmonize  the  facts  of  animal 
and  rational  life;  that  the  lines  of  division  laid 
down  cannot  be  effaced. 

When  I  took  up  a  new  field  of  instruction  in  the 
University  of  Wisconsin,  I  experienced  a  second 
time  the  need  of  text-books.  This  need  gave  rise 
to  Ethics  and  to  Natural  Theology,  and  to  the 
revision  of  Principles  of  Psychology  and  Science 
of  Mind.  I  first  used  the  Moral  Science  of  Dr. 
Hickok.  My  own  book  is  in  fundamental  accord 
with  this  volume.  My  desire  in  publishing  it  was 
to  shift  somewhat  the  point  of  view,  to  give  the 
theory  of  morals  a  statement  suited  to.  the  changing 
criticisms  of  empiricism,  and  to  widen  out  its 
principles  on  the  side  of  sociology.  I  have  found 
in  instruction  that  the  interest  of  students  is  more 
easily  secured  in  a  discussion  of  the  theory  of 
morals  than  in  a  presentation  of  duties  under  it. 
This  presentation  should  be,  I  believe,  a  brief  one 
on  the  side  of  principles,  when  it  deals  with  familiar 
virtues,  and  receive  expansion  only  in  fields  of 
action  whose  obligations  are  less  well  defined. 
Sociology,  with  its  often  obscure  and  difficult 
duties  and  its  many  fresh  directions  of  inquiry, 
affords  one  of  the  most  needful  and  desirable 


Writings  171 

opportunities  for  the  extension  and  correction  of 
ethical  ideas.  Principles  become  vital,  and  the 
logic  of  duty  coherent  and  forceful,  when  they 
are  unfolded  along  the  lines  of  urgent,  social 
activity.  Vitality  is  the  one  quality  of  good 
instruction,  and  this  we  can  find  only  where 
vital  forces  are  at  work.  He  who  can  apply  prin- 
ciples is  so  far  a  master,  and  he  who  does  apply 
them  in  action  is  so  far  virtuous.  Nowhere  do 
clear  insight,  refined  sensibility,  and  wholesome 
activity  blend  so  perfectly  as  in  the  knowledge 
of  duty. 

I  wrote  my  work  on  Natural  Theology  in  order  to 
present  the  argument  for  the  being  and  attributes 
of  God  as  modified  by  the  doctrine  of  evolution. 
The  objections  one  meets  with  to  the  familiar 
proofs  of  Natural  Theology  are  almost  wholly 
associated  with  evolution.  They  can  be  over- 
come only  by  a  thorough  apprehension  of  this 
theory  in  its  strong  and  in  its  weak  points;  in 
the  things  to  be  accepted  and  the  things  to  be 
modified  or  to  be  rejected  in  connection  with  it. 
This  idea  of  evolution  has  been  of  so  incalculable  a 
value  in  giving  coherence  to  our  conception  of  the 
universe,  and  has  done  so  much  to  expand  and 
to  purify  our  notion  of  God  as  immanent  reason, 
that  it  should  be  with  us  a  first  principle,  equally 


172        Things  Learned  by  Living 

in  theology  as  in  science.  My  work  on  Natural 
Theology  assigns  it  this  position,  and  restates  the 
argument  in  harmony  with  this  view.  The  rela- 
tions of  matter  and  mind,  the  interdependence 
of  the  two,  and  the  question  between  them  of 
priority  involves  the  deepest  philosophy,  and 
must,  therefore,  be  capable  of  an  ever  improving 
statement  as  our  knowledge  and  insight  enlarge. 
A  profound  personal  experience  of  truth  is  a  pre- 
requisite to  any  satisfactory  formula  in  this  field 
of  thought.  Belief  here  involves  faith  in  that  it 
searches  our  purest  spiritual  life  for  the  fitting 
terms  of  its  expression.  We  can  touch  the  coin- 
cidence of  matter  and  mind,  the  incidence  of  thing 
and  thought,  deftly  and  truly  only  as,  and  where 
mind  asserts  itself  most  profoundly  and  independ- 
ently. All  along  border-lines  matter  is  the  pre- 
dominant element.  It  is  matter  that  fences  in 
and  defines  the  universe,  as  the  body  fences  in 
and  defines  the  powers  of  the  spirit.  The  spirit 
itself  is  revealed  to  the  spirit  and  to  it  only.  Cer- 
tainty and  self-assertion,  being  and  comprehension 
here  blend  in  one. 

The  four  books  which  followed,  The  Words  of 
Christ,  Problems  in  Philosophy,  Sociology,  and  The 
New  Theology,  were  all  called  out  by  an  interest  in 
the  topics  discussed,  and  had  no  connection  with 


Writings  173 

my  work  as  a  teacher.  The  Words  of  Christ  aims 
at  disclosing  the  overwhelming  rational  element  in 
the  instructions  of  our  Lord.  It  is  this  element, 
not  dogmatic  authority,  which  assigns  his  teachings 
their  true  position.  It  is  by  virtue  of  light  that  he 
is  Lord  of  Light,  by  virtue  of  truth  that  he  is  the 
Truth.  It  is  this  perfectly  independent,  interior, 
and  universal  force  in  the  words  of  Christ  that  the 
volume  strives  to  present.  The  first  chapter  was 
written  for  the  Unitarian  Review  and  then  with- 
drawn because  of  the  suggestion  which  it  gave  me 
of  a  wider  treatment.  Some  topics,  like  the 
closing  chapter  on  the  natural  and  the  super- 
natural, reappear  elsewhere  in  my  writings,  partly 
because  of  their  many-sided  character,  and  still 
more  because  I  have  found  it  difficult  to  say  my 
last  word  upon  them,  so  central  are  they,  so  capable 
of  suffering  fresh  confusion  and  receiving  fresh 
exposition.  A  single  line  of  presentation  no  more 
retains  its  serene  light  under  changing  perplexities 
than  does  a  summer  day  the  lucid  air  of  the  morn- 
ing. The  visible  and  the  invisible  melt  into  each 
other  no  more  constantly  along  the  fringe  of  clouds 
than  do  changeable  conceptions  replace  one  an- 
other in  the  eternal  blending  of  the  natural  and 
the  supernatural,  the  outer  physical  form  and  the 
inner  spiritual  force. 


174        Things  Learned  by  Living 

Problems  in  Philosophy  is  a  system  of  philosophy 
cut  down  to  a  few  of  its  most  pregnant  principles. 
In  this  reduced  form  it  offers  itself  more  modestly 
and  more  bearably,  when  the  assurance  and  the 
burdens  of  speculation  are  already  so  great.  It 
may  well  be  doubted,  however,  whether  current 
methods  of  discussion  are  any  more  tedious  than 
are  the  processes  of  thought  with  which  they  are 
associated.  I  have  found  in  public  assemblies  that 
debate  is  exceedingly  circuitous  and  wearisome, 
but  that  hasty  efforts  to  shorten  and  to  correct 
it  only  involve  fresh  confusion.  Presentation  is 
so  slow  because  the  pace  of  the  mind  is  so  painful. 
Then  also  the  corrections  and  counter-corrections 
which  lie  among  us  must  each  have  the  full  light 
of  thought  turned  upon  them.  According  to  the 
complexity  of  truth  are  the  multiplicity  and 
difficulty  of  its  readjustments;  and  according  to 
the  number  who  take  part  in  the  inquiry  is  the 
earlier  confusion  of  cross-conceptions.  There  is  no 
use  in  begrudging  the  time  it  takes  to  secure  and  to 
diffuse  adequate  knowledge.  Long  speeches  and 
full  discussions  gain  also  somewhat  by  sheer 
volume.  Length  is  a  ready  measure  of  amount, 
momentum  is  inseparable  from  bulk.  A  curt 
speech  and  a  concise  treatise  are  often  followed  by 
so  many  objections  and  misconceptions  as  to  com- 


Writings  175 

pel  a  re-opening  of  the  entire  topic.  The  fagots  so 
snugly  bound  up  must  be  untied  and  spread  out  a 
second  time  for  observation.  I  have  also  found 
that  conciseness  may  be  mistaken  for  repetition. 
A  second  sentence  may  present  an  important  shade 
of  thought  not  contained  in  the  previous  one.  If 
the  difference  were  dwelt  on,  it  would  be  recognized, 
but  passed  rapidly,  it  is  not  seen,  and  the  second 
assertion  is  mistaken  for  a  needless  restatement 
of  the  former  idea.  I  began  very  early  to  cultivate 
the  power  of  concise  composition,  but  have  found 
it,  like  all  other  methods,  subject  to  its  own  diffi- 
culties and  limitations.  A  full  presentation  will 
often  seem  to  be  and  will  be  a  wiser  one,  and  will 
better  impress  the  mind  with  the  amplitude  of  the 
thought.  Moreover,  we  must  keep  step  in  intel- 
lectual as  in  physical  movement.  If  the  reader  is 
not  sufficiently  familiar  with  the  subject  of  discus- 
sion to  spread  it  out  at  once  under  the  light,  then 
the  writer  must  shake  it  loose,  let  it  fall  in  ample 
folds,  and  carry  the  eye  luxuriously  over  it.  Prob- 
lems in  Philosophy  is  made  up  of  bits  of  closely  folded 
thought,  which,  if  one  has  the  wisdom  to  unfold 
and  to  unite  them  again,  offer  a  cloak  of  no  scrimped 
pattern.  My  error  has  usually  lain  in  not  making 
a  sufficiently  voluble  and  voluminous  appeal  to  the 
attention  of  men. 


176        Things  Learned  by  Living 

The  work  on  Sociology  is  preliminary  and 
theoretical.  I  found  a  much  fuller,  and  more  prac- 
tical presentation  shaping  itself  in  my  thoughts. 
I  have  had  occasion,  for  several  years,  to  lecture 
on  sociology,  and  a  field  so  wide  and  fertile  over- 
whelms one  with  the  multitudinous  processes  of 
reaping  and  of  storing  the  harvest.  All  culture  of 
mind  and  heart,  all  gains  of  science  and  faith,  all 
inherited  forms  of  law,  and  all  renewed  forces  of 
life  are  united  and  completed  in  sociology.  One 
can  hardly  be  adequately  furnished  for  this  work. 
My  instruction,  on  this  subject,  began  with  Sunday 
afternoon  lectures  in  the  University  of  Wisconsin. 
I  have  been  struggling  somewhat  vainly  for  a 
long  time  to  secure  for  it  an  adequate  presentation 
in  the  course  at  Williams.  This  effort  now 
promises  to  be  successful,  and  I  hope  to  make  the 
next  few  years  effective  on  the  side  of  social 
theory. 

When  I  find  my  theoretical  out-look  on  life  so 
hopelessly  in  advance  of  the  conditions  which 
surround  me,  I  instinctively  take  up  the  refrain: 
"I  would  not  live  always."  We  sometimes  think 
that  the  world  loses  much  in  losing  ripe  men,  yet 
ripe  men,  like  ripe  fruit,  need  to  return  to  the 
seed  again  for  all  purposes  of  growth.  We  do  most 
for  the  world  when  we  are  working  at  close  quarters 


Writings  177 

with    it,    gathering    our    conclusions    into   fresh 
centers  of  thought  and  suffering  all  the  collisions 
of  immediate  contact.     These  first  steps  over,  our 
lives  are  segregated,  are  separated  out  from  the 
crude  material  about  them,  and  are  less  responsive 
and  submissive  to  its  present  wants.     The  plant 
that  looks  to  transplanting  is  ready  for  the  change 
the  moment  it  begins  to  overshadow  and  to  burden 
the  soil.     One  is  fortunate  in  keeping,  as  a  teacher 
of  young  men,  so  long  in  the  center  of  the  stream. 
The  New  Theology  aims  to  present  those  inevit- 
able, just,  and  living  tendencies  which  are  issuing 
in  the  interior  evolution  and  enlargment  of  faith. 
I  have  paid  the  price — not  a  very  severe  price,  yet 
the  price — of  personal  liberty,  and  I  have  won  a 
right  to  its  ready  and  easy  use  in  all  the  higher 
forms  of  thought.     It  is  a  glorious  thing  to  feel 
faith  strengthened  by   what   at  first   seemed  a 
rupture  of  its  bonds.     A  bird  falling  from  its  nest 
turns  the  disaster  into  a  discovery  of  new  powers 
of  flight.     I  am  chiefly  thankful  that  I  have  been 
able  to  stand  quietly,  continuously,  and  fully  by 
my  own  convictions,  and  that  these  convictions 
have  been  corrected — I  would  that  they  had  been 
more   completely  corrected — by  sympathy   with 
all  the  renovating  thought  of  the  world.     Let  the 
spiritual  world  be  renovated,  let  the  Kingdom  of 


178        Things  Learned  by  Living 

Heaven  come.  That  interpretation  which  renews 
the  world  in  its  vital  forces  leads  into  the  Kingdom. 
I  do  not  feel  that  the  liberty  which  I  have  used 
has  been  a  wasteful  or  a  reckless  one,  but  chiefly 
a  divine  ministration  of  truth  to  the  spirit  it- 
self. Theology  is  new,  life  is  new,  all  things  are 
new  in  the  measure  in  which  they  are  an  im- 
mediate medium  to  the  incoming  revelation  of 
God. 

I  have  a  volume  ready  for  publication  entitled, 
An  Historical  Interpretation  of  Philosophy.  I 
have  endeavored  to  trace  in  it,  carefully  and  critic- 
ally, the  one  central  channel  which,  amid  innumer- 
able shallows  and  lagoons,  makes  navigable  the 
stream  of  philosophical  speculation.  There  ought 
to  be,  there  is,  one  movement  which  cannot  be 
covered  nor  confounded  by  these  vagrant  and 
divergent  expressions  of  thought .  The  gravitation 
of  truth,  obscure  and  intangible  as  it  is,  cannot  be 
less  real  than  the  gravitation  to  one  issue  of 
widespread  and  sluggish  waters.  There  must 
come  confirmation  to  correct  theory,  as  there 
comes,  no  matter  how  slowly,  discharge  to  a  river 
choked  by  its  own  drift.  This  midway  current, 
fed  both  by  empirical  and  by  purely  speculative  in- 
quiry, is  found  in  a  modified  intuitionalism.  Every 
form  of  knowledge  has  its  own  ultimates,  and  these 


Writings  179 

ultimates  are,  in  philosophy,  our  own  powers  of 
comprehension . 

My  books,  up  to  the  present  time,  1892,  have 
cost  me  over  $6000  and  have  returned  to  me  about 
$4000.  This  means  an  aggregate  circulation  of 
15,000  copies,  and  an  average  sale  of  1071  copies. 
According  to  the  terms  which  have  been  granted 
me,  each  volume  must  reach  a  circulation  of  nearly 
2000  copies  before  it  begins  to  be  remunerative. 
A  large  part  of  my  warfare  has  been  at  my  own 
charges,  but,  as  I  have  chiefly  aimed  at  the  pre- 
sentation of  things  which  seemed  to  me  valuable, 
the  only  tangible  regret  is  found,  not  in  the  cost- 
liness, but  in  the  inadequacy,  of  the  work.  It  is 
fortunate  that  all  vigorous  life  is  so  overcharged 
with  confidence  that  it  does  not  easily  admit  the 
fear  of  failure.  We  confront  the  world  with  a 
brave  heart  because  we  take  it  and  ourselves  at 
our  own  estimates.  If  we  cannot  square  the 
account  as  it  stands,  we  increase  and  diminish 
values  until  it  yields  the  desired  balance.  Is  this 
dishonesty,  or  is  it  that  truly  wise  temper  which 
makes  a  spiritual  gain,  the  utterance  of  our  own 
lives,  outweigh  all  other  gains?  An  adequate  aim 
is  requisite  to  give  a  rational  form  to  action,  but 
action,  once  entered  on,  gathers  much  of  its  profit- 
ing from  the  incidents  which  lie  along  the  way. 


i8o        Things  Learned  by  Living 

An  excursion  in  the  spiritual  world  is  not  unlike 
a  recreative  trip  in  fine  scenery.  We  need  a 
destination,  but  it  is  not  the  destination  alone, 
but  quite  as  much  the  intervening  spaces,  which 
make  the  day  successful.  Often  as  we  must 
apply  the  narrower  standards  of  success  to  our 
work,  so  keeping  ourselves  in  the  thoroughfares 
of  life,  we  constantly  find  within  ourselves,  and 
are  ever  cherishing  the  hope  that  there  may  be 
beyond  ourselves  obscure  rewards  carrying  with 
them  a  more  adequate  justification  of  our  conduct. 
We  live  by  bread,  but  not  by  bread  alone,  but  by 
every  word  which  proceedeth  out  of  the  mouth 
of  God.  Bread  is  only  the  conspicuous,  capital 
letter  which  introduces  the  divine  word,  not  the 
very  fullness  of  the  word  itself.  I  have  been 
criticized  for  writing  too  much.  Perhaps  so;  but 
much  of  the  force  of  the  criticism  arises  from  a 
failure  to  see  the  innumerable  secondary  purposes 
subserved  by  composition.  Would  it  be  better  to 
do  a  "big  thing" ;  or  would  the  big  thing  be  better 
done  by  a  surveillance  of  the  many  minor  things 
which  lie  close  at  hand?  Life  must  be  left  to  lift 
itself,  to  declare  itself  as  it  is  and  where  it  is.  The 
only  excuse  I  offer  is  diligence  in  doing  little  things. 
At  the  present  date,  1900,  I  have  added  several 
volumes  to  my  published  works.  Social  Theory 


Writings  181 

grew  out  of  instruction,  and  gives  a  much  wider 
and  more  practical  statement  of  social  principles 
than  that  contained  in  Sociology. 

Evolution  and  Religion  was  designed  to  show 
how  thoroughly  the  spiritual  development  which 
is  expressed  in  religion  is  contained  in  the  unfolding 
of  the  world;  and  consequently  how  undeniable 
and  invincible  are  the  primary  beliefs  and  ten- 
dencies contained  in  faith.  Growth  of  Nationality 
in  the  United  States  arose  from  lectures  accompany- 
ing a  study  of  the  Constitution,  and  thus  has  been 
offered  as  a  fruit  of  instruction  and  an  aid  to  it. 

I  have  now  ready  a  book  entitled  God  and  His 
Goodness.  This  is  likely  to  finish  my  publications. 
I  should  be  glad  to  give  a  treatise  on  the  English 
Constitution,  but  the  shadows  are  too  long.  God 
and  His  Goodness  aims  to  present  that  view  of 
human  life,  which  best  brings  out  its  inner  force 
and  the  goodness  of  God  shown  therein.  It  again 
is  offered  solely  as  the  vision  of  love.  Later  than 
the  time  above  indicated,  this  book  was  published 
but  wholly  at  my  own  cost  and  has  chiefly  been 
given  away.  This  has  happened  partly  because  it 
would  bear  no  price  and  partly  because  it,  like  all 
love,  is  without  price. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  FORMULA    OF    PERSONAL  LIFE 

CACH  of  us  opens  manhood  with  a  maximum 
*^  of  fresh  personal  power.  All  germs  are  full  of 
special  potency,  and  often  rich  in  nutritive 
material;  but  nowhere  does  conquering  force 
come  into  such  complete  consciousness  as  in  the 
mind  of  the  young  man.  He  matches  himself 
with  events  as  if  the  conflict  could  not  but  declare 
in  his  favor.  It  matters  very  little  what  phi- 
losophy may  say  about  freedom,  the  problem  is 
entered  on  with  unfailing  confidence  and  solved 
in  the  one  bold  way  every  time  a  man-child  is  born 
into  the  world.  Conquering  and  to  conquer  is 
the  inner  meaning  and  motto  of  all  life. 

As  this  first  impulse  exhausts  itself  by  its  own 
efforts;  as  the  obstacles  to  be  overcome  renew 
themselves  inexhaustibly ;  as  the  immense  breadth, 
depth,  momentum  of  the  forces,  with  which  men 
have  to  deal,  disclose  themselves;  the  hero,  just 
now  so  sure  to  conquer,  may  be  led  to  feel  that  he 

is  the  sport  of  energies  wholly  beyond  him,  the 

182 


The  Formula  of  Personal  Life      183 

victim  of  a  delusive  liberty,  the  bond-servant  of 
an  inexorable  fate.  The  vigorous  youth  hardly 
notices,  or  spurns  joyfully  aside  the  snowflakes 
that  fall  on  his  path.  He  finds  in  them  no  burden ; 
he  is  aware  of  no  opposition.  Hour  after  hour 
they  come  trembling  down.  The  light  feathery 
mass  begins  to  delay  the  feet.  The  loose  drift 
is  gaining  coherence  every  moment.  He  is  com- 
pelled to  arouse  his  energies  to  meet  it.  His 
strength  is  disclosing  limits  close  at  hand,  the 
obstacle  seems  more  and  more  illimitable.  The 
inequality  of  the  conflict  declares  itself,  and  the 
strong  man  perishes  like  a  very  feeble  thing. 

All  the  forces  of  inheritance  within  ourselves, 
all  the  determinate  and  unchangeable  conditions 
of  life  without  ourselves,  unintermittingly,  when 
we  sleep  and  when  we  wake,  spend  their  inexhaust- 
ible energies,  their  eternal  inertias,  in  wearying  out 
our  will,  in  subduing  our  strength,  and  in  bring- 
ing our  new  life  into  subjection  to  the  old,  old  laws 
of  the  inconvertible  world  about  us.  How  can 
this  conflict,  so  deceptive  in  its  incipiency,  so  full 
of  the  illusions  of  mere  cloud-drift,  terminate 
otherwise  than  in  the  world's  becoming,  in  its 
gross  texture  and  heavy  weights,  the  open  grave 
in  which  the  spirit,  in  spite  of  its  higher  potencies 
and  subtle  ways  of  elusion,  is  sure  to  be  buried? 


1 84        Things  Learned  by  Living 

An  easy  victory  over  the  world  is  the  morning 
dream  of  youth,  a  wide-spread  and  dreadful 
conflict  is  the  noonday  impression,  ready, 
with  the  coming  night,  unless  the  soul  finds 
succor,  to  darken  down  into  the  sense  of  utter 
defeat. 

The  working  formula  of  our  personal  life  is 
liberty,  an  indefinite  power  of  doing;  increasing 
strength  and  inexhaustible  satisfaction  in  the 
thing  done,  spontaneous  impulse,  imperishable 
hope,  rational  forecast,  a  growing  sense  of  duty, 
the  vision  of  faith,  all  concur  in  fastening  upon  us 
this  indomitable  law  of  conduct.  They  all  offer 
us  this  one  formula — liberty.  Is  it  an  illusion? 
Does  the  wider  survey  of  philosophy  assure  us 
that  we  are  accepting  a  struggle  to  which  there 
can  be  but  one  issue;  that  we  are  wearying  our- 
selves with  no  sufficient  purpose;  that  the  snow 
which  is  gathering  along  our  path  is  making  the 
question  one  of  miles,  rods,  feet?  Would  sober, 
proportionate,  prudent  thought  lead  us  to  substi- 
tute another  formula,  submission  to  the  inevitable? 
Is  this  the  law  of  our  real  life,  when  stripped  of  all 
misleading  hopes?  Are  its  precepts:  Do  what  is 
immediately  rewardf ul  in  the  doing ;  Leave  undone 
what  cannot  be  done;  Sit  down  when  fatigue 
overtakes  you ;  Cross  no  weapons  with  the  inevit- 


The  Formula  of  Personal  Life      185 

able ;  Cherish  an  abiding  sense  of  the  immeasurable 
and  invincible? 

Every  human  spirit  is  thrown  back  on  itself  a 
thousand  times  as  this  one  question  is  put  to  it  in  a 
thousand  different  ways,  with  a  pertinacity  as  tire- 
less as  it  is  evil.  All  one's  life  is  spent  in  resolving 
this  doubt.  It  does  not  simply  return  in  a  triple 
form  at  the  opening  of  life,  like  the  temptations 
of  our  Lord,  but  it  comes  sneaking  back  all  through 
life  like  a  worthless  dog  that  has  been  driven  away 
and  stands  as  of  old  at  our  back  door  when  we  are 
ready  to  sally  out  on  some  new  enterprise.  Does 
this  lack  within  ourselves  of  a  harmonious  and 
restful  method  belong  to  us  as  the  doubt  and 
disturbance  of  peevish,  pessimistic  powers;  or  is 
it  the  seal  and  significance  of  unattained  greatness? 
Is  this  the  way  in  which  life  defeats  itself;  or  do 
here  lie  the  victories  of  faith,  the  steps  by  which 
we  go  up  into  the  mountain  of  God? 

The  first  reconciling  term  is  a  due  sense  of  the 
universe  as  necessarily  furnishing  the  continuous, 
coherent,  common  lines  of  all  change.  A  large 
share  of  inflexibility  must  belong  to  the  world,  in 
its  function  of  storing  our  collective  growth.  Will, 
in  its  voluble,  fickle  impulses,  must  not  sink 
deeply,  and  at  once,  into  the  framework  of  things. 
Resistance  and  constructive  value  measure  each 


1 86        Things  Learned  by  Living 

other.  We  are  dealing  with  all  the  world  and  with 
the  will  of  God,  and  we  must  find  our  way  slowly 
into  places  of  wisdom,  peace,  power.  When  the 
universe  takes  us  up,  we  are  taken  up  for  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven. 

A  second  reconciling  thought  is  the  certainty 
and  sufficiency,  for  our  purposes,  of  the  change  we 
are  able  to  work  in  the  world.  The  world  in  many 
ways  bends  to  our  service,  and  once  broken  it 
submits  to  its  load  like  a  patient  beast  of  burden. 
We  sit  by  the  bank  of  a  river.  We  cannot  re- 
plenish its  fountains.  We  cannot  alter  its  destina- 
tion. Yet  to  how  many  uses  we  can  put  it.  To 
how  many  changes  of  much  significance  to  us  we 
can  subject  it.  How  completely  the  new  and  the 
old  unite  in  it  in  the  aid  it  renders  to  our  lives. 
Deeper  modifications  would  mean  mischief  oftener 
than  improvement. 

Moreover  this  inextinguishable  impulse  of  life 
may  well  stand  for  the  last  direction,  the  latest 
momentum  given  us  as  we  go  forth  from  the  hand 
of  God.  Life  has  conquered  the  world,  spiritual 
life  may  well  conquer  it  again .  There  is  more  hope, 
more  vision,  more  acceleration  in  the  second  than 
in  the  first  conquest.  Let  us  stand  by  the  instant, 
the  most  significant  path  of  the  world,  that  in 
which  it  is  budding  forth  afresh  in  us  in  its  endless 


The  Formula  of  Personal  Life     187 

evolution.  Evolution  is  with  us,  not  against  us. 
The  things  as  yet  but  half  declared  command  the 
future.  Light  is  the  dawn  of  a  coming  day. 

A  fourth  reconciling  term  is  that  of  time.  The 
physical  universe  has  the  better  of  us,  as  yet,  in 
the  matter  of  time.  Its  folds  are  so  voluminous 
that  it  easily  inwraps  and  smothers  our  resentful 
lives  as  very  little  things.  We  are  dealing  with 
days.  The  world  deals  with  aeons.  But  the 
future  is  ours  as  certainly  as  it  is  the  world's. 
Past  years  will  not  avail  it  forever.  The  chariot 
may  weary  us  when  we  first  begin  to  run  with  it, 
but  our  strength  will  mount  up  to  the  contention. 
We  are  born  into  the  world.  We  may  share  its 
patient,  imperturbable  power.  Confronting  the 
limitless  past,  we  must  rest  back  on  the  limitless 
future.  Having  this  support,  the  past  itself  will 
become  increasingly  ours.  We  are  not  unequal 
combatants  in  the  struggle  with  the  world  for 
larger  life,  for  this  life  is  not  a  thing  of  the  past 
but  of  the  future.  Prophecy  is  with  us.  The 
past  even  is  not  at  one  with  itself;  it  hints  of 
things  beyond  itself;  while  the  future  is  set 
apart  as  the  field  of  their  fulfillment.  It  has  no 
other  significance.  If  we  once  more  strike  in,  in 
this  long  race,  we  shall  find  that  the  inner  energies, 
the  inspirations  of  the  conflict,  are  not  evenly 


1 88        Things  Learned  by  Living 

divided  between  us  and  our  adversary,  the  sense- 
less and  dull  soul  of  things,  but  that  they  are  all 
with  us,  the  last  living  force  of  things. 

The  reconciling  element,  which  above  all  others 
justifies  our  practical  formula,  is  the  presence  of 
God  in  the  world.  The  world  is  not  a  dead  world, 
it  is  not  even  a  mechanical  world,  whose  method 
and  rate  of  rotation  are  fixed.  While  elements  of 
fixedness  and  certainty  enter  largely  into  it,  they 
are,  in  many  ways,  modified  and  softened  in  their 
relation  to  mind.  Bounds  are  elastic,  ends  may 
be  re-shaped,  movements  may  be  retarded  and 
accelerated.  The  world  is  alive  with  a  Spiritual 
Presence.  While,  therefore,  its  inertia  and  its 
momentum  remain  as  the  expression  of  the  sobri- 
ety and  adequacy  of  the  divine  thought,  they  are 
not  forces  with  which  man  intermeddles  at  his  peril. 
They  concur  with  him  and  he  with  them  in  accom- 
plishing purposes  which  may  be  widened  and 
hastened  in  their  own  order.  The  element  which 
most  delays  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  the 
spiritual  one,  the  human  one,  and  enthusiasm  vis- 
ibly accelerates  its  movement.  The  devotion  of 
the  spirit  to  good,  its  resistfulness  to  evil,  its 
struggle  for  instant  obedience  are  not  ill-directed 
or  wasted  energies,  they  unite  the  mind  of  man  with 
the  mind  of  God ;  they  inspire  in  men  kindred  pur- 


The  Formula  of  Personal  Life     189 

poses ;  they  harness  our  powers  productively  into 
the  physical  and  spiritual  system  to  which  we 
belong.  Its  magnitude,  even  though  that  magni- 
tude expresses  itself  as  inertia,  is  no  longer  an 
injury.  If  the  world  were  more  flexible,  if  all  things 
could  be  speedily  accomplished  by  us,  there  would 
be  in  this  fact  no  spiritual  gain.  Better,  far  better, 
is  it  to  work  with  God  at  great  things,  slowly 
wrought  into  the  very  frame-work  of  the  world, 
and  at  the  same  time  and  by  the  same  processes  into 
the  secret  recesses  of  our  own  lives.  All  fresh  en- 
thusiasms are  truly  germinant  terms  in  the  problem 
of  being.  It  is  thus  that  the  sense  of  waiting  on 
God  plays  so  large  a  part  in  spiritual  life.  Though 
the  vision  tarry,  wait  for  it ;  because  it  will  surely 
come;  it  will  not  always  tarry.  Waiting  is  not 
waiting,  but  the  curbing  of  our  superficial  and 
fitful  thoughts,  until  they  settle  down  like  well- 
broken  horses,  to  the  work  which  engages  them. 
Our  entire  spiritual  experience  turns  on  our  ability 
to  cast  ourselves  unreservedly  upon  the  renovating 
forces  of  the  world,  and  there  by  insight  and  by 
obedience  to  grow  into  the  divine  mind.  It  is  law 
and  law  only  that  binds  us  to  our  tasks.  We 
thus  come  to  see  that  we  are  not,  in  our  devo- 
tion, flinging  ourselves  passionately  and  foolishly 
against  adamantine  walls;' but  that  we  are  finding 


19°        Things  Learned  by  Living 

our  obscure — obscure  to  our  mole-like  vision — 
way  into  the  unfolding  purposes  and  sustaining 
love  of  our  Heavenly  Father.  Thus  we  meet 
the  infinite  in,  and  through  the  finite  ever  taking 
form  under  his  and  our  creative  hands. 

A  sixth  reconciling  fact  is  immortality.  If  our 
work  could  be  gotten  as  easily  and  quickly  over 
as  we  would  wish  it  to  be,  where  were  the  signifi- 
cance, the  intellectual  and  spiritual  extension  of 
these  everlasting  years.  If  we  are  being  incor- 
porated into  the  universe,  sharing  and  accelerating 
its  wide-cast  movement;  if  we  are  rising  to  a 
position  of  real  forecast  and  true  participation; 
then  are  the  years  of  God  and  the  divine  life 
truly  with  us  and  in  us.  Our  lives  are  gaining 
depth  enough,  gathering  breadth  enough  to  share 
the  seed-sowing  and  fruition  of  all  years. 

Immortality,  also,  as  involving  a  transition, 
a  change  of  conditions,  whose  nature  and  extent 
we  cannot  fully  anticipate,  will  doubtless  bring 
to  us  more  favorable  terms  of  life  and  may  carry 
us  forward  into  fields  of  activity,  in  which  the 
constructive  processes  shall  respond  more  imme- 
diately to  our  touch;  in  which  the  inner  forces 
and  outer  forms  of  action  shall  lie  more  nearly 
parallel  with  each  other,  and  in  which  things 
otherwise  dead  shall  be  more  instantly  permeable 


The  Formula  of  Personal  Life      191 

by  things  forever  alive.  If  so,  what  an  infinite  de- 
mand will  be  laid  upon  us  for  the  wisdom,  which 
prudence  and  patience  and  experience  have  here 
wrought  in  us. 

Yet  this  anticipation  is  often  only  another  of 
our  indolent  devices  by  which  we  put  outside 
conditions  in  place  of  inside  energies,  the  work  of 
another  for  our  own  work.  When  we  have  a 
feeble,  slipping  hold  on  what  is,  we  wait  anxiously 
for  what  is  to  be,  expecting  a  better  grip  on  our 
part  of  its  possibilities.  Yet  a  tree  that  is  with- 
ering up  in  the  soil  assigned  it  will  hardly  revive 
when  transferred  to  new  and  strange  conditions. 
We  are  straitened  in  ourselves ;  and  difficulties  are 
ever  difficulties  of  life,  not  of  the  terms  of  life. 

The  power  of  our  personal  formula  is  the  power 
of  faith,  the  inspiration  of  the  soul  within  itself. 
This  faith  is  an  achievement,  not  a  principle;  an 
unfolding  of  the  mind  toward  the  light,  not  a 
dogma.  It  carries  with  it  the  sense  of  immortality 
by  virtue  of  inexhaustible  powers,  a  growth  that 
is  ever  pushing  into  growth.  Growth  commands 
all  powers,  answers  all  questions,  holds  within 
itself  all  promises,  contains  all  secrets,  resolves 
all  doubts.  Let  the  affections  begin  to  unfold 
themselves  in  the  light,  and  light  becomes  not 
merely  revelation  but  life,  which  is  the  joy  of 


192        Things  Learned  by  Living 

revelation.  A  wonderful  unity  and  power  enter 
at  once  into  life  the  moment  it  asserts  itself.  It 
becomes  true  to  the  world,  the  world  becomes 
true  to  it,  and  delays  and  failures  turn  themselves 
into  fresh  forces  and  larger  victories. 

A  seventh  justification  of  the  law  of  liberty  is 
found  in  the  very  nature  of  liberty.  Liberty  is 
not  spasmodic,  detached  volition.  Volition  is  the 
incident  and  product  of  rational  life,  not  its  very 
substance;  as  the  sparks  beneath  an  electric  car 
are  mere  indications  of  its  motive  power.  Reason, 
by  its  own  coherent  processes,  its  own  self -directed 
insight,  moves  forward  from  within  to  take  posses- 
sion of  the  world.  This  is  liberty,  the  liberty  of  the 
soul  to  see,  to  act,  to  enter  into,  and  to  share  all 
wisdom.  By  this  movement  things  themselves, 
fully  framed  in  rational  relations,  are  possessed  and 
subjected  by  mind.  Is  it  matter  that  is  winning  its 
way  over  mind,  or  is  it  mind  that  is  pushing  its  way 
with  fresh  explorations  into  matter?  Liberty,  in 
the  very  end,  is  not  so  much  resistance  as  it  is 
concession,  and  concession  that  subdues  the  con- 
flicting forces,  as  the  hawk  rides  on  the  brisk  wind 
it  confronts.  One  movement  only  holds  all  things, 
expounds  all  things,  the  movement  of  reason,  and 
liberty  means  our  participation  in  that  movement. 
Reason  can  never  sell  itself  to  servitude,  can  never 


The  Formula  of  Personal  Life      193 

accept  servitude.     This  is  suicide,   the  one  act 
which  is  ever  and  utterly  illogical. 

We  cannot  rise  into  spiritual  life  until  we  under- 
stand and  know  how  to  employ  the  free,  forceful 
laws  of  that  life;  and  the  moment  we  do  this,  the 
new  power,  which  is  in  us,  gains  a  strange  energy, 
a  conquering  strength  over  things,  which  before 
seemed  stubborn,  rock-like,  hardly  subject  even 
to  fracture.  It  is  true  that  the  relatively  immut- 
able remains  immutable,  but  it  remains  so  only  as 
the  antithesis,  the  measure  of  the  mutable;  as 
the  tenacious  fiber  out  of  which,  by  a  deft,  delicate 
hand,  the  strong,  smooth  thread  of  life  is  quickly 
twisted.  The  crucifix  is  the  symbol  of  utmost 
resistance,  and  also  of  utmost  assertion,  and  by 
that  sign  we  conquer.  Not  until,  by  the  sense  of 
spiritual  power,  we  can  overtop  the  topmost 
thing  in  the  world,  shall  we  subdue  the  world 
under  us.  This  is  our  victory. 

13 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  FORMULA  OF   SOCIAL  LIFE 

IF  personal  life  meets  immense  resistance  to  any- 
thing  like  violent  or  extended  change,  much 
more  does  social  life.  We  here  come  in  contact 
with  a  still  wider  range  of  resistful  influences,  and 
confront  them,  not  with  the  exceptional  vigor  of 
a  single  will,  but  with  the  average,  indolent  pur- 
poses of  the  mass  of  men.  The  prudent  view  and 
the  inspired  view  of  duty  are,  therefore,  still  more 
diverse  from  each  other  in  collective  than  in  per- 
sonal interests.  A  quiet,  philosophical  outlook 
over  the  field  of  development  compels  us  to  see 
how  much  time  must  necessarily  be  consumed  in 
implanting,  as  convictions,  feelings,  customs,  fresh 
social  principles;  how  much  more  time  will  be 
required  to  soften,  to  subdue,  and  to  change  these 
very  convictions  and  customs  as  the  progress  of 
events  puts  them  into  new  relations.  Events  them- 
selves are  slow;  the  correct  interpretation  of  them 
still  slower;  while  each  new  movement  chokes  the 
way  for  that  which  is  to  follow.  The  progress 

194 


The  Formula  of  Social  Life       195 

of  society  is  like  the  march  of  an  unskilled  army, 
it  is  subject  to  every  variety  of  accident ;  each  divi- 
sion is  in  the  way  of  other  divisions,  and  helpless 
and  exasperating  delay  overtakes  them  all  in  turn. 
Philosophy,  therefore,  is  ready  to  say  that  these 
cumbersome  forces,  which  rule  society,  cannot  be 
much  accelerated  in  their  action.  The  law  of  the 
movement  compels  it  to  be  a  sluggish  and  a  wasteful 
one.  A  providence  far  wider  and  deeper  than  hu- 
man providence  has  these  changes  in  hand,  and  our 
wisdom  lies  in  keeping  aloof  from  either  repulsion 
or  propulsion.  It  matters,  indeed,  little  whether 
we  push  against  so  formidable  a  body  in  front  or  in 
the  rear;  in  either  case  we  waste  our  strength.  A 
goodness,  therefore,  which  assumes  the  type  of  pru- 
dence, will  leave  that  to  be  done  which  is  being 
done  and  wait  with  most  comfort  and  least  loss  for 
that  which  can  not  yet  be  done.  Philosophy  is 
wise  and  will  not  sanction  a  useless  squandering 
of  forces. 

Religion,  on  the  other  hand,  in  its  more  eager 
vision;  its  fellowship  with  the  supernatural;  its 
convulsions  and  conversions :  its  days  of  the  Lord ; 
and  its  millenniums,  pronounces  for  immediate 
and  exhaustive  efforts,  and  this,  century  after  cen- 
tury, though  nothing  in  the  actual  progress  of 
society,  under  all  the  exertions  of  faith,  contra- 


196        Things  Learned  by  Living 

diets  the  calmer  thought  of  philosophy.  Religion 
has  mistaken  little  flurries  of  dust  for  cyclones. 
Formal  changes  have  been  magnified  in  their 
importance.  Pietism  and  fanaticism  have  re- 
peated themselves,  not  indeed  without  growth, 
but  with  no  such  deep  or  rapid  renovation  as  in 
any  way  to  break  the  slow,  continuous  march  of 
society.  The  church,  with  its  divided  brother- 
hoods, remains  an  isolated  organization,  an  inci- 
dental, vacillating,  and  frequently  secondary 
cause  in  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven— 
the  Kingdom  in  which  the  divine  idea  in  its 
breadth  and  strength  is  to  declare  itself.  The 
world,  the  world  of  God,  moves  slowly,  picking 
up  or  pushing  aside  religious  ideas  and  methods 
as  a  portion  only  of  the  multitudinous  things  which 
are  rolling  on,  like  a  river  to  the  sea,  under  the 
comprehensive,  constructive  providence  of  our 
Heavenly  Father. 

Standing  between  this  philosophical  impotency, 
this  fatalism  on  the  one  side,  and  the  sense  of 
spiritual  potency,  so  often  fatuous,  on  the  other, 
what  is  the  true  formula  of  social  action?  Is  it 
not,  Push  earnestly,  continuously,  unhesitatingly 
the  development  of  truth  for  its  vivifying  relations 
to  our  own  minds  and  to  the  minds  of  all  men? 
Here  again  consecration,  and  consecration  alone, 


The  Formula  of  Social  Life       197 

is  achievement.  The  central,  the  ruling  power  of 
the  spiritual  world  is  truth.  One  must  so  conceive 
this  world,  and  be  faithful  to  this  conception,  or  one 
does  not  rise  into  it,  one  misses  its  unity,  one  falls  off 
from  the  divine  mind.  In  a  search  into  the  truth 
and  into  the  use  of  the  truth, — processes  in  the  end 
inseparable  from  each  other — we  have  to  do  with 
its  intrinsic  force  and  with  its  widest  relations  to 
the  minds  of  men.  It  is  its  intrinsic  force  which 
justifies  our  formula.  Its  highest  gifts  will  follow  in 
this  line  alone.  We  are  not  to  use  truth  simply  as 
a  convenient  lever  to  pry  into  position  the  weight- 
ful  minds  about  us,  and  so  to  make  an  open  path 
suitable  to  our  immediate  wants.  Truth  is  not 
to  be,  as  it  is  so  often  made  to  be,  one  among  the 
many  means  we  employ  in  influencing  men.  This 
notion  always  implies  some  end  ulterior  to  the 
enrichment  of  the  spirit  itself.  It  is  not  life,  but 
something  wherewith  to  grace  life,  that  we  are 
thus  seeking.  A  quick  sense  of  the  effect  of  what 
we  are  saying  on  the  minds  of  others  is  a  very 
different  thing,  in  its  relation  to  character,  from 
a  keen  insight  into  the  scope  and  applications  of 
truth  itself.  The  one  directs  our  attention  to  the 
relation  of  men  to  our  immediate  wants ;  the  other, 
to  the  complete  dependence  of  our  own  mind  and 
all  minds  on  the  inherent  force  of  spiritual  things. 


198        Things  Learned  by  Living 

The  misapprehensions  and  perversions,  which 
truth  must  meet  and'overcome,  are  involved  in  its 
constructive  purposes.  We  might  as  well  expect 
to  lift  great  blocks  of  granite  to  their  positions  in 
a  wall,  without  inconvenience  or  strain,  as  to  Sub- 
ject the  lives  of  men  to  new  and  higher  principles 
without  resistance.  As  a  certain  weight  attends 
all  things  and  is  the  ultimate  bond  in  all  physical 
union,  so  an  inertia  belongs  to  thought,  and  be- 
comes the  firmness  of  all  spiritual  movement. 
There  is  no  way  of  working  without  work,  no 
way  of  measuring  results  save  by  the  labor  of 
attainment. 

While  we  have  great  and  constant  occasion  to 
fear  a  too  narrow  application  of  the  truth,  we 
have  no  occasion  to  fear  a  too  early  or  a  too  per- 
sistent urging  of  it  for  the  ends  of  growth.  The 
inertia  of  the  human  mind  is  quite  sufficient  to 
steady  it.  Nothing  so  steadies  the  mind  as  truth 
itself,  in  its  checks  and  counter-checks.  The  mind 
is  always  and  above  all  things  entitled  to  the  truth, 
and  entitled  to  be  brought  in  the  most  complete 
form,  and  with  greatest  possible  rapidity  under 
its  influence.  There  is  no  worse  usurpation,  no 
more  unwarrantable  appropriation,  than  that  of 
the  truth  as  an  esoteric  possession  by  those,  who 
think  themselves  alone  worthy  of  it;  nor  is  there 


The  Formula  of  Social  Life        199 

any  way  in  which  truth  is  more  surely  squandered 
in  its  most  benign  influences  than  by  this  neglect 
of  its  largest  relations.  The  very  fact  that  there 
is  so  much  misapprehension  to  be  removed,  so 
much  resistance  to  be  overcome  is  ground  and 
reason  for  haste  If  the  morning  is  cold  and  misty , 
so  much  the  greater  occasion  for  the  sun. 

One  of  the  grandest  books  of  our  generation  is 
John  Morley's  Compromise.  It  most  profoundly 
accepts  and  enforces  the  eternal  claims  of  truth. 
There  is  no  more  unripe  and  sour  fruitage  of  truth 
than  contempt,  and  contempt  is  the  ruling  feeling 
in  withholding  truth.  It  is  the  capacity  of  the 
mind  for  the  truth  which  alone  makes  it  worthy 
to  be  revered.  One  may,  indeed,  be  embittered 
against  the  world,  bringing  to  it  many  trains  of 
thought  for  which  it  is  not  yet  ready,  but  his  ill 
success  comes  to  him  because  he  lacks  the  skill, 
the  quietness,  and  the  patience  of  a  good  gardener. 
He  hastily  thrusts  his  seeds  into  the  soil,  and  is 
angry  at  the  cold,  wet  ground  which  as  speedily 
rots  them.  The  discipline  of  the  truth  is  a  dis- 
cipline of  our  entire  nature.  Our  virtues  flow 
from  exactly  the  same  fountains  as  do  our  just 
conceptions.  As  light,  heat,  the  actinic  ray  are 
all  present  in  every  sunbeam,  and  together  con- 
stitute its  revealing  and  vitalizing  force,  so  are 


200        Things  Learned  by  Living 

there  discovery,  enlargement,  new  affections  in  the 
truth-seeking,  truth-giving  temper,  rendering  it 
in  the  spiritual  kingdom  the  one  constructive 
power  of  the  divine  mind. 

Seeking  to  move  society,  we  cannot  plant  our 
capstans  too  directly  and  distinctly  in  front. 
All  corrections,  for  it  and  for  us,  will  come  out 
of  the  labor.  The  formula  of  prudence  presup- 
poses independent  renovating  powers  in  whose 
action  we  acquiesce ;  the  religious  formula  assumes 
a  divine  energy  which  is  to  renovate  the  world  in 
an  irresistible  way,  we  waiting  on  it  in  prayer; 
the  spiritual  formula  remembers  that  we  our- 
selves, primary  powers  in  spiritual  things,  chief 
instruments  in  the  hand  of  God,  are  to  fur- 
nish the  impulses  under  which  all  progress  is 
achieved.  Thoughtfulness,  consecration,  progress 
are  all  variable  phases  of  one  thing.  There  is 
among  them  a  vital  interaction  under  which 
they  prosper  together  or  fail  together.  The 
philosophic  formula  assumes  impulses  which  it 
fails  to  furnish.  So  science  often  traces  the  pro- 
cesses of  life  and  ignores  life  itself.  The  secret 
of  Christ  is  the  reverse  of  this.  The  attention  is 
diverted  from  the  immediate  gains  of  life  to  life 
itself;  the  inner  hold  of  the  mind  on  truth,  and  of 
the  truth  on  the  mind.  This  movement,  in  its 


The  Formula  of  Social  Life       201 

just  completion,  cannot  fail  to  disclose  all  the 
beauty  of  perfect  and  proportionate  spiritual 
things.  Thought  and  love,  human  insight  and 
divine  revelation  unfold  together  as  one  kingdom, 
in  which  neither  is  an  instrument  but  both  are 
reciprocally  instrumental.  That  to  move  in  behalf 
of  reason,  to  move  with  the  divine  mind  are  at 
once  sound  philosophy  and  true  religion  is  the 
secret  of  spiritual  life,  the  formula  of  social  life. 
Only  thus  do  we  gather  that  life  into  ourselves; 
only  thus  does  that  life  gather  us  into  itself. 
To  live  and  to  move  and  to  have  our  being  in  God 
is  to  stand  in  the  most  conscious  direct  contact 
with  his  renovating  grace,  ourselves  appropriating 
it  by  being  a  medium  of  it  to  others.  We  gather 
life  by  being  where  life  is,  ever  reaching  forward 
with  it. 


CHAPTER  IX 

RELIGION 

'T'HE  great  spiritual  struggle  in  my  time  has  lain 
between  naturalism  and  supernaturalism. 
In  my  youth,  supernaturalism,  scarcely  broken 
in  force,  was  in  possession  of  the  field.  The  attack 
of  naturalism,  in  the  form  of  science,  had  been 
fully  opened,  but  its  chief  batteries  were  not  yet 
in  position ;  the  doctrine  of  evolution  had  still  to 
complete  and  to  establish  itself.  The  urgent  need, 
therefore,  of  a  thoughtful  life,  covering  this  period, 
has  been  a  new  adjustment  of  these  two  tendencies. 
Monism  has  been  the  predominant  faith  of  philo- 
sophy. It  has  arisen  from  this  need  of  a  higher 
unity,  and  has  taken  an  empirical  or  a  spiritual 
direction  according  to  the  constructive  predis- 
position of  different  minds.  Neither  science  nor 
philosophy  nor  religion  can  fully  maintain  itself 
without  an  unbroken  field  of  thought,  the  con- 
dition of  continuous  and  coherent  inquiry.  Each 
and  all  demand  a  world  at  one  with  itself. 
Monism  has  been  sought  by  the  subjection  of 

202 


Religion  203 

the  laws  of  mind  to  the  laws  of  matter;  by  the 
subjection  of  the  laws  of  matter  to  the  laws  of 
mind;  and  by  taking  both  up  into  the  being  of 
God. 

In  this  strife,  I  have  accepted  naturalism  as 
against  sporadic  supernaturalism,  and  super- 
naturalism  as  against  a  fatalistic  naturalism. 
Mind  is  the  seat  of  orderly  supernaturalism, 
matter  of  determinate  naturalism.  Nature,  as 
the  root  of  the  two  worlds,  should  mean  fixed, 
physical  coherences.  The  one  thing  that  has 
grown  for  me  ever  clearer  has  been  that  the  pro- 
cesses of  reason  underlie  all  other  processes;  that 
the  sensuous  terms  of  matter  are  simply  diagrams 
in  the  demonstrations  of  reason ;  that  the  transition 
between  the  mobile  movement  of  thought  and  the 
immobile  movement  of  matter  is  that  between  the 
sentiment  not  yet  uttered  and  the  sentiment  once 
uttered.  While,  therefore,  the  world  of  experience 
necessarily  opens  with  dualism — offering  itself  in 
all  primitive  terms — it  ripens  under  reason  into 
one  product,  everywhere  alike  permeated  by  mind. 
The  unity  of  the  world  is  purely  rational.  Indeed 
unity  is  pertinent  to  reason,  and  to  reason  alone. 
It  is  correlative  with  the  diversity  of  things. 
Each  is  necessary  to  the  other. 

While,  therefore,  the  coherence  of  the  unfolding 


204        Things  Learned  by  Living 

processes  of  the  world,  disclosed  to  us  as  physical 
laws,  has  ever  been  on  the  increase  in  my  thought, 
the  sense  of  a  pervasive  personality  has  been 
equally  on  the  increase.  The  diagram  and  the 
demonstration  have  been  flowing  on  together. 
Reason  has  kept  pace  with  the  instruments  of  its 
utterance.  Reason,  in  its  expression,  resolves  itself 
into  two  products,  an  unfolding  universe  and  a 
ripening  spiritual  life.  The  firmness  of  the  one  in 
no  way  destroys  the  elasticity  of  the  other.  Both 
are  equally  real,  and  real  through  each  other. 

The  illustrations  are  many.  The  more  vigorous 
is  any  given  form  of  life  the  less  may  its  laws 
be  violated,  and  the  more  freedom  and  ease  are 
there  in  the  handling  of  them  within  themselves. 
Reason  is  ever  resolving  itself  into  the  logical 
coherence  of  propositions,  and  is,  at  the  same  time, 
subject  to  the  infinitely  susceptible  movement  of 
the  feelings.  The  vine,  climbing  at  liberty  over 
its  trellis,  is  no  more  subject  to  the  straight  lines 
of  its  support  than  is  the  human  spirit,  at  play 
with  its  own  emotions,  bound  to  the  fixed  forms 
of  the  physical  world.  This  liberty  of  thought  has 
increasingly  seemed  to  me  the  true  flowering  of 
material  things,  that  into  which  all  evolution  is 
forever  ripening.  It  is  the  lambent  flame  which 
gives  light,  not  the  fixed  relations,  which  underlie 


Religion  205 

its  immediate  activity.  We  must  accept  the 
phenomenal  force  of  laws,  the  spiritual  freedom 
to  which  they  give  occasion,  or  they  lose  all 
significance.  Unity  lies  in  enveloping  the  neces- 
sary with  the  free,  as  life  lies  in  wrapping  the 
world  about  with  a  vital,  volatile  atmosphere. 

Under  this  process  of  thought  the  collision  of 
creeds  has  been  left  behind.  One  supreme,  per- 
vasive, personal  presence — thought  shining  forth 
as  love — has  been  the  central  fact  of  being.  All 
other  facts  derive  their  significance  from  this  fact. 
Christ,  our  Lord,  is  the  fullest  revelation  of  this 
Divine  Spirit,  and  draws  all  eyes  by  this  simple 
force  of  light.  The  laws  above  all  law  are  those  of 
conduct,  waiting  to  be  disclosed  and  to  be  achieved 
in  spiritual  liberty.  In  this  disclosure  and  achieve- 
ment— a  divine  purpose  and  a  human  fulfillment — 
all  wisdom,  grace,  conquest  express  themselves. 
There  are  no  definite  limits,  no  fixed  lines  to  this 
movement.  It  has  in  it  the  growing  resources  of 
the  universe.  It  will  spread  over,  cover,  adorn, 
and  turn  into  liberty  all  its  sensuous  and  gross 
forms.  How  it  will,  in  each  instance,  issue  is 
beyond  our  prediction,  but  not  beyond  our  hope. 
The  victories  of  righteousness,  whatever  losses  may 
attend  on  them,  will  be  complete  and  universal. 
Life,  spiritual  life,  is  ever  taking  deeper,  more 


206        Things  Learned  by  Living 

penetrative  possession  of  its  own.  This  is  evolu- 
tion. Immortality  is  the  essential,  rational — and 
all  things  are  rational — condition  of  this  move- 
ment, and  this  movement  is  the  immediate  force 
and  proof  of  immortality. 

Generic,  general  well-being  includes  specific, 
personal  well-being.  There  is  no  salvation  of  the 
race  which  is  not,  at  the  same  time,  the  salvation 
of  those  who  compose  it.  Holiness  is  the  all-inclu- 
sive and  conquering  law,  and  holiness  is  at  once  the 
inexorable  law  and  the  enduring  liberty  of  reason. 

The  various  phases  of  dogma  which  this  creed 
displaces  seem  to  me  to  have  held  some  fragments 
of  truth,  more  or  less  firmly,  as  their  vital  force. 
The  germ  is  enveloped  in  tough,  oftentimes  coarse 
integuments.  These,  once  broken  asunder  and 
left  behind,  are  thenceforward  of  very  little  value. 
Yet  they  have,  in  their  order,  held  the  life,  have 
subserved  its  purposes,  and  have  lain  in  the  line 
of  its  development. 

If  religious  truth  is  the  most  stimulating  of  all 
forms  of  truth;  if  it  is  the  oxygen  of  the  spiritual 
world,  by  whose  eager  affinities  all  other  truths  are 
built  up  into  a  system,  then  religion  is  no  external, 
partial  want  of  the  spirit,  otherwise  complete 
in  itself;  it  is  the  breath  of  its  life,  without  which 
it  suffers  slow  strangulation.  Religion  is  life — 


Religion  207 

a  wider,  deeper,  fuller  life — gathered,  by  slow 
transfer,  about  a  new  and  higher  center.  It  is 
being  born  into  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  It  is 
the  descent  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  upon  us. 

Religion  as  a  life,  with  resources  and  felicities 
wholly  its  own,  may  be  understood  and  tested  only 
within  itself,  only  by  living  it.  Its  insights  attend 
on  achievements,  its  range  of  observation  on 
ascending  heights  in  the  spiritual  world.  Does 
this  faith  justify  itself  in  the  vital  force  that  comes 
with  it?  Does  this  life  reward  itself  in  the  very 
putting  forth  of  its  own  powers?  It  has  seemed 
to  me,  in  the  measure  in  which  I  have  possessed  it, 
to  put  the  idea  of  extraneous  authority  and  exter- 
nal reward  out  of  the  question  and  to  leave  the  soul 
full,  overflowing  with  the  pure  felicity  of  being. 
To  make  this  quite  true,  and  continually  true, 
this  life  must  be  allowed  to  have,  and  must  win 
its  full  sweep.  It  is  not  a  maimed  and  limping 
movement,  which  gives  unalloyed  delight.  The  lib- 
erty of  the  spirit  must  carry  with  it  the  liberty  of 
the  mind;  and  the  liberty  of  the  mind,  the  liberty 
of  the  affections;  and  the  liberty  of  all,  the  liberty 
of  the  body.  The  higher  powers  and  impulses 
must  rest  freely  and  firmly  back  on  the  lower 
ones.  The  light  which  falls  on  the  summit  of  the 
range  must  not  disclose  any  undue  ruggedness  or 


208        Things  Learned  by  Living 

precipitancy  or  barrenness  along  its  slopes.  Se- 
renity and  proportion  and  affluence  must  be  found 
everywhere.  If  the  religious  life  is  complete  in 
itself,  and  in  full  fellowship  with  all  life,  then  it 
is  true  that  a  loving  Heavenly  Father  giveth  unto 
his  own  all  things  richly  to  enjoy.  The  struggles 
by  which  this  victory  of  spiritual  life  is  to  be  won, 
the  failures,  near  and  remote,  which  attend  upon  it, 
do  not  essentially  mar  the  life  which  prospers  by 
them  and  rises  above  them.  The  substance  of 
that  life  is  and  must  be  a  sense  of  power,  a  sense 
of  possession,  an  apprehension  of,  and  an  appetite 
for  virtue  achieved  under  turmoil.  The  beautiful 
day,  the  day  of  supreme  refreshment,  breaks 
through  breaking  clouds,  and  rules  the  elements 
rife  with  storms.  If  we  can  feel  the  Great  Heart 
of  the  world  beat,  and  our  hearts  beat  with  it, 
we  shall  not  wish  its  mighty  throb  quieted,  nor 
our  pulses  stilled.  The  march  of  events,  their 
various  and  multitudinous  voices,  will  all  serve 
to  express  the  scope  and  force  of  the  life,  of 
which  God  has1  made  us  partakers  and  which  he 
marshalls,  century  by  century,  with  fresh,  creative 
energy.  All  we  shall  desire  will  be  to  grow  into 
the  universe,  which  is  growing  into  us. 

My  religious  faith  seems  to  me  to  gather  increas- 
ingly all  the  force  of  reason  into  itself.     It  has 


Religion  209 

never  suffered  any  shocks  of  unbelief,  nor  tarried 
in  any  one  camp  for  any  considerable  period.  I 
have  been  upon  the  march  in  my  spiritual  beliefs 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end.  Though  the  men- 
tal movement  has  been  somewhat  in  advance  of 
the  practical  movement  of  personal  and  social 
regeneration,  the  two  have  not  been  sundered, 
and  I  have  a  growing  sense  of  the  certainty  of  the 
coming  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  in  the  earth, 
and  of  its  methods. 

My  changes  in  religious  belief  have  consisted 
chiefly  in  steadily  shaking  off  formal,  theological 
opinions  as  not  sufficiently  grounded  in  facts,  as 
subtle  beyond  knowledge,  and  in  putting  in  their 
place  a  spiritual  rendering  of  the  events  of  the 
world.  Faith  has  thus  become  inductive;  and 
life  and  faith  have  grown  together.  Such  a  tie 
once  formed,  is  not  easily  broken  asunder. 

If  I  were  to  judge  the  world  by  my  own  expe- 
rience, my  own  consciousness,  I  should  find  no 
great  darkness,  no  spiritually  inexplicable  points 
in  it.  My  own  discipline  has  been  plainly  a 
discipline  full  of  all  ennobling  possibilities.  The 
things  not  understood,  the  irresolvable  nebulae, 
lie  in  the  apparent  conditions  of  many  other  lives. 
Yet  I  feel  that  we  are  here  liable  to  a  deceptive 
rendering.  We  put  together  incompatible  terms, 


210        Things  Learned  by  Living 

which  are  nowhere  actually  joined,  our  own  per- 
sonal impulses  and  another  man's  external  sur- 
roundings. The  outer  and  the  inner  are  the 
reverse  and  the  obverse  of  the  same  thing.  A  life, 
no  matter  what  that  life  is,  has  a  certain  harmony 
of  its  own.  Its  forces,  spiritual  and  physical,  are 
in  vigorous  action  and  reaction  on  each  other, 
and  are,  therefore,  however  depressed  the  position 
occupied,  pushing  toward  a  corrected  and  per- 
fected equilibrium.  The  internal  and  external 
are  not,  for  any  considerable  time  nor  in  any 
considerable  degree,  in  conflict  with  each  other. 
Germs  and  climate  fight  their  own  battles,  in 
their  own  way,  and  are  ever  looking  toward  some 
adjustment,  some  form  of  life.  I  believe  it, 
therefore,  the  sounder  philosophy  to  take  to  our- 
selves the  comfort  of  our  own  inner  form  of  light, 
to  feel  assured  that  God's  grace  is  in  no  way 
limited  to  us,  and  that  what  is  done  here  and  now 
with  us  and  for  us  stands  for  the  larger,  later 
possibility  in  the  entire  world  of  truth. 

We  ought  to  accept  life,  even  spiritual  life,  in 
the  full  circuit  of  its  varieties  and  incipient  forms. 
This  is  a  part  of  the  teaching  of  the  doctrine 
of  evolution.  Things  have  value  backward  and 
forward.  The  earlier  life  is  not  to  fall  into  the 
shadow  of  the  later  life,  since  that  later  life  has 


Religion  211 

sprung  from  it.  The  world  moves  together,  and  so 
takes  all  with  it.  We  have  no  right  to  put  upon 
incipient  lower  forms  of  intellectual  and  spiritual 
life  the  stringency  and  scope  of  moral  forces  which 
fall  to  us.  The  danger  and  liabilities  are,  in  each 
phase  of  being,  according  to  the  character  of  the 
being  itself.  The  wrath  we  have  accumulated 
about  the  baser,  more  sensuous  kinds  of  trans- 
gression, belongs  more  properly  with  us  alone. 
We  must  have  a  summer  sky  before  we  can  have 
the  thunder-cloud.  Widening  my  judgments 
with  these  consolatory  thoughts — which  are  the 
most  necessary  expansions  of  faith — and  the  world 
seems  to  me  to  be  the  very  garden  of  God,  resting 
under  the  first  warm  spring  days  of  his  love,  and 
our  prayer  becomes  that  we  all  may  thrive  in  this 
vital  sunshine. 


A  PARTIAL  LIST  OF 

ADDRESSES  AND  PUBLISHED  WRITINGS  BY 
JOHN  BASCOM 

1852.  Address:    Mental    Vigor:    Its    Component 

Parts. 

Dialexian    Society,      New    York 
Central  College. 

1853.  A.  M.  Oration:  Modes  of  Mental  Action. 

Williams  College  Magazine. 
1853.      Address:    Nature  as  Emotional  Expression. 

Landscape  Gardening  Association, 

Williams  College. 
1857.       Article:       Hickox's    Empirical    Psychology. 

North  American  Review,  vol.  Ixxxiv, 

PP.  364-379. 
1859.      Book:         Political  Economy. 

Warren    F.     Draper,     Publisher, 

Andover,  Massachusetts. 

1 86 1        Sermon:     Baccalaureate,  Williams  College. 
1862.      Book:         Esthetics,  or  The  Science  of  Beauty. 
G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  Publishers. 
1862.      Article:      Buckle's  History  of  Civilization. 
New  Englander,  vol.  xxi,  pp.  173- 
193- 

212 


Writings  of  John  Bascom         213 


1862.       Article: 


1862.       Article: 


1863. 

Sermon  : 

1863. 

Sermon  : 

1865. 

Book: 

1865 

Address  : 

1865. 

Address  : 

1866.       Article: 


1866.       Article: 


1866.       Article: 


Laws  of  Political  Economy  in  their 
Moral  Relation. 

New  Englander,  vol.  xxi,  pp.  649- 
668. 

The  Morality  of  Political  Econ- 
omy. 

National  Review,  April. 

Our  Duty  to  the  Community. 

North  Pownal,  Vermont. 

On  Temperance.  Williams  Col- 
lege. 

Philosophy  of  Rhetoric. 

G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  Publishers. 

Political  Economy  of  Agriculture. 

Massachusetts  A  gricultural  Reports. 

Agricultural  Society,  Pittsfield, 
Massachusetts. 

Transactions  Berkshire  Agricul- 
tural Society,  pp.  3-12. 

Relations  of  Intuitions  to 
Thought. 

American  Presbyterian  Review,  vol. 
xv,  pp.  272-291. 

Intuitive  Ideas  and  their  Relation 
to  Knowledge. 

Bibliotheca,  vol.  xxiii,  pp.  1-48. 

Utilitarianism. 

Bibliotheca,  vol.  xxiii,  pp.  435- 
452. 


214  Addresses  and  Published  Writings  01 

1867.      Address:    Agricultural    Society,     Greenfield, 
Massachusetts. 

Massachusetts     Agricultural     Re- 
ports. 

Secret  Societies  in  Colleges. 
Williams  College. 

Temperance. 

Great  Barrington. 

Conscience ;  its  Relation  and  Office. 

Bibliotheca,  vol.  xxiv,  pp.  150-175. 

Cause  and  Effect. 

Bibliotheca,  vol.  xxiv,  pp.  296-317. 

(1)  Natural  Theology  of  the  Social 
Sciences. 

Bibliotheca,  vol.  xxiv,  pp.  722-744. 

(2)  Natural    Theology,    etc.   vol. 
xxv,  pp.  1-23. 

(3)  Natural    Theology,    etc.  vol. 
xxv,  pp.  270-315. 

(4)  Natural  Theology,    etc.   vol. 
xxv,  pp.  645-686. 

(5)  Natural    Theology,  etc.    vol. 
xxvi,  pp.  120-162. 

(6)  Natural    Theology,   etc.  vol. 
xxvi,  pp.  401-442. 

(7)  Natural    Theology,  etc.   vol. 
xxvi,  pp.  609-646. 

Principles  of  Psychology. 

G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  Publishers. 


1867. 

Sermon 

1867. 

Sermon 

1867. 

Article  : 

1867. 

Article  : 

1867. 

Article  : 

1868. 

Article  : 

1868. 

Article  : 

1868. 

Article  : 

1869. 

Article: 

1869. 

Article  : 

1869. 

Article  : 

1869. 

Book: 

John  Bascom 


215 


1869.  Article: 

1869.  Article: 

1870.  Article: 

1870.  Article: 

1871.  Article: 
1871.  Book: 
1871.  Address: 
1871.  Article: 

1871.  Article: 

1872.  Article: 


Consciousness;  What  is  it? 
American  Presbyterian  Review,  vol. 

xviii,  pp.  478-491 . 
Foci  of  the  Social  Ellipse. 
Putnam's  Magazine,  vol.  xiv,  pp. 

7I3-725- 

Human  Intellect. 

Bibliotheca,  vol.  xxvii,  pp.  68-90. 

Inspiration  and  the  Historic  Ele- 
ment in  the  Scriptures. 

American  Presbyterian  Review, 
vol.  xix,  pp.  90-105. 

Instinct. 

Bibliotheca,  vol.xxviii,  pp.  654-685. 

Science,  Philosophy,  and  Religion. 

G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  Publishers. 

Agricultural  Address. 

North  Adams,  Massachusetts. 

Sphere  of  Civil  Law  in  Social 
Reform.  American  Presbyterian 
Review,  vol.  xx,  pp.  40-51. 

Darwin's  Theory  of  the  Origin  of 
Species. 

American  Presbyterian  Review,  vol. 
xx,  pp.  349-379- 

Influence  of  the  Press. 

Bibliotheca,  vol.  xxix,  pp.  401- 
418. 


216  Addresses  and  Published  Writings  of 


1872. 
1872. 


Article : 
Address : 


1872.      Article: 


1872. 

Report  : 

1872. 

Address  : 

1873. 

Article  : 

1873. 

Article  : 

1874. 

Book: 

1874. 

Address  : 

1874.       Sermon: 


1875.      Address 


Influence  of  the  Pulpit. 

Bibliotheca,  vol.  xxix,  pp.  698-719. 

The  Threefold  Kingdom. 

Mills  Theological  Society,  Will- 
iams College. 

Evolution  as  advocated  by  Her- 
bert Spencer. 

Presbyterian  Quarterly  Review,  vol. 
i,  pp.  496-5I5- 

Minority  Report  on  Coeducation. 

Williams  Vidette,  July. 

Inauguration  of  Dr.  Chadbourne. 

Williams  College. 

The  Nation. 

Bibliotheca,  vol.  xxx,  pp.  465-481. 

Taine's  English  Literature. 

Bibliotheca,  vol.  xxx,  pp.  628-647. 

Philosophy   of  English  Literature. 

G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  Publishers. 
Economy  in  Farming. 

Transactions  Wisconsin  Agricul- 
tural Society,  vol.  xiii,  pp.  1 48-1 60. 

Freedom  of  Faith. 

Baccalaureate,  University  of 
Wisconsin. 

Dress. 

Transactions  Wisconsin  Agricul- 
tural Society,  vol.  xiii,  pp.  434- 
452. 


John  Bascom 


217 


1876. 
1876. 


1878. 
1878. 


Book: 
Article : 


1876.      Sermon: 


1876.      Address: 


1877.       Sermon: 


Book: 
Sermon : 


Albert  Hopkins. 

Bibliotheca,  vol.  xxxii,  pp.  350-362. 

Consciousness. 

Bibliotheca,  vol.  xxxii,  pp.  676-702. 

Faith  and  Reason. 

Baccalaureate.       University      of 

Wisconsin. 

Philosophy  of  Religion. 
G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  Publishers. 
Synthetic  or  Cosmic  Philosophy. 
Bibliotheca,  vol.    xxxiii,  pp.    618- 

655 

Seat  of  Sin. 

Baccalaureate.  University  of 
Wisconsin. 

Conditions  of  Progress  in  Agricul- 
tural Classes. 

Transactions  Wisconsin  Agricul- 
tural Society,  vol.  xiv,  pp.  110- 

I2O. 

Education  and  the  State. 
Baccalaureate.       University       of 

Wisconsin. 

Growth  and  Grades  of  Intelligence. 
G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  Publishers. 
Common  Schools. 
Baccalaureate.       University      of 

Wisconsin. 


218  Addresses  and  Published  Writings  of 


1879. 
1879. 


1880. 

1881. 


Book: 
Sermon : 


1879. 

Article  : 

1879. 

Article  : 

1879. 

Article  : 

1880. 

Article  : 

1880. 

Article  : 

1880. 

Book: 

1880. 

Sermon  : 

Article : 
Sermon : 


1 88 1.       Article: 


Ethics,  or  The  Science  of  Duty. 
G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  Publishers. 
Government  by  Growth. 
Baccalaureate.        University      of 

Wisconsin. 

Conventional  Conscience. 
Sunday  Afternoon. 
A  Kind  of  Cooperation. 
Sunday  Afternoon . 
Kingdom  of  Heaven. 
Sunday  Afternoon. 
Names. 

Sunday  Afternoon. 
Destruction  of  the  Poor. 
Sunday  Afternoon. 
Natural  Theology. 
G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  1  Publishers. 
Tests  of  a  School-System. 
Baccalaureate.        University      of 

Wisconsin. 
Examinations. 

The  Western,  vol.  vi,  pp.  497-499. 
Truth  and  Truthfulness. 
Baccalaureate.        University      of 

Wisconsin. 
Atheism  in  Colleges. 
North  American  Review,  vol.  cxxxii. 

pp.  32-40. 


John  Bascom 


219 


1 88 1.       Article:      Improvements  in  Language. 

The  Western,  vol.  vii,  pp.  492-509. 

1 88 1.       Article:       (i)    State     Universities     of     the 

Northwest. 
The  Western,  vol.  vii,  pp.  134-145. 

1 88 1.      Article:       (2)     State    Universities     of    the 

Northwest. 
The  Western,  vol.  vii,  pp.  229-238. 

1 88 1.       Article:      Logic  for  Lire. 

The  Western,  vol.  vii,  pp.  270-273. 

1 88 1.       Article:      The    University    and    the    High 

School. 
Wisconsin  Journal  of  Education, 

vol.  xi,  pp.  I55-I59- 
Philosophical  Results  of  a  Denial 

of  Miracles. 
Princeton  Review,  vol.  viii,  N.  S., 

pp.  85-94. 

The  Historic  Sense. 
Annual  Convention  of  Beta  Theta 
Pi,  Chicago,  Illinois. 

1 88 1 .  B ook :         Science  of  Mind. 

G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  Publishers. 

1882.  Article:      Gains  and  Losses  of  Faith  from 

Science. 

Journal  of  Christian   Philosophy, 
vol.  i,  p.  18. 


1 88 1.       Article: 


1 88 1.      Address: 


220  Addresses  and  Published  Writings  of 


1882.       Article: 


1882. 
1882. 
1882. 

1883. 
1883. 


Pamphlet 
Address : 
Sermon : 

Book: 
Sermon: 


1883.      Article: 


1883.      Article: 


1883.      Article: 


1883.      Pamphlet: 


Instruction      in      Philosophy     in 

Colleges  and  Universities. 
Education,  vol.  ii,  pp.  437-445. 
:  The   Philosophy   of   Prohibition. 

23  PP- 

Woman  Suffrage. 
Madison. 
The   Lawyer    and    the    Lawyer's 

Question. 
Baccalaureate.       University       of 

Wisconsin. 
Words  of  Christ. 

G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons.  Publishers. 
The  Natural  and  the  Supernatural. 
Baccalaureate.  University  of 

Wisconsin. 
Mind  and  Matter; Their  Ultimate 

Reference. 
Journal  of  Christian  Philosophy, 

vol.  ii,  p.  195. 
Freedom  of  the  Will. 
Christian  Thought,  vol.  i,  pp.  49- 

64. 

Mind    and    Matter;    Their     Im- 
mediate Relation. 
Journal  of  Christian   Philosophy, 

vol.  ii,  p.  195. 

Prohibition   and  Common  Sense, 
National  Tract  Society. 


John  Bascom  221 

1883.  Address:    First  Principles. 

Transactions  Wisconsin  Agricul- 
tural Society,  vol.  xxii,  pp.  226- 
236. 

1884.  Sermon:     The  New  Theology. 

Baccalaureate.       University      of 

Wisconsin. 
1884.      Paper:        Part  which  the  Study  of  Language 

Plays  in  Education. 
National  Educational  Association. 
1884.      Article:      The    Public   Press   and   Personal 

Rights. 
Education,  vol.  iv,  p.  604. 

1884.  Address:     The    University  and    the   State. 

University  Review.    Kansas. 

1885.  Sermon:     Hero  Worship. 

Baccalaureate.       University      of 

Wisconsin. 
1885.      Book:         Problems  in  Philosophy . 

G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  Publishers. 

1885.  Article:      Inspiration. 

New  Englander,  January,  pp.  89- 
103. 

1886.  Sermon:     Common  Sense  and  Spiritual  In- 

sight. 

Baccalaureate.       University       of 

Wisconsin. 

1886.      Article:       The  Pulpit  and  Practical  Benevo- 
lence. 

Pulpit  Treasury,  January. 


222  Addresses  and  Published  Writings  of 


1886.      Articles: 


1887.      Sermon: 


1887. 
1887. 
1887. 
1887. 


1890. 
1890. 


Book: 
Article : 
Article  : 
Article : 


1888.      Article: 


1889.      Address: 


Memorial 
Address : 


Practical  Benevolence  and  Length 
of  Pastorate. 

Pulpit  Treasury,  March. 

A  Christian  State. 

Baccalaureate.       University      of 
Wisconsin. 

Sociology. 

G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  Publishers. 

Books  that  Have  Helped  Me. 

Forum,  vol.  iii,  pp.  263-272. 

Gist  of  the  Labor  Question. 

Forum,  vol.  iv,  pp.  87-95. 

Scientific  Theism. 

New  Englander  and  Yale  Review, 
April,  pp.  346-357- 

Prohibitory    Law    and    Personal 
Liberty. 

North  American  Review,  vol.  cxlvii, 
pp.  I35-HO. 

The    Ideal   Element  in  the  Good 
Teacher. 

Semi-centennial,  Westfield,  Massa- 
chusetts. 
:  Joseph  White. 

Williamstown,  Massachusetts. 

Civic  Growth  of  Society. 

Law  Class.    University  of    Wis- 
consin. 


John  Bascom 


223 


1891. 
1891. 


Book: 
Address: 


1891. 

Article: 

1891. 

Article  : 

1.891. 

Article  : 

1891. 

Article: 

1891. 

Article  : 

1891. 

Article  : 

1893.      Book: 


1893.      Article: 


1893.      Address: 


The  New  Theology. 

G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  Publishers. 

To  the  Young  Men's  Christian 
Association. 

Massachusetts  Agricultural  Col- 
lege. 

The  Bennett  Law. 

Educational  Review,  vol . i,  pp.  48-52 . 

A  New  Policy  in  Public  Schools. 

Forum,  vol.  xi,  pp.  59-66. 

Liquor  Logic. 

Cyclopaedia  of  Temperance. 

General  Principles  of  Prohibition. 

Cyclopaedia  of  Temperance. 

Coeducation. 

American  University  Magazine. 

./Esthetics. 

Encyclopedia  Britannica,  Ameri- 
can Supplement,  pp.  50-52. 

Historical  Interpretation  of  Phi- 
losophy. 

G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  Publishers. 

Pres.  Edwards. 

Vol.  n,  Berkshire  Historical  So- 
ciety. 

Office  of  a  Christian  College  in 
Connection  with  Social  Duties. 

Williams  Centennial. 


224  Addresses  and  Published  Writings  ot 


1895.      Book: 


1895.       Article: 


1895.      Article: 


1897.      Book: 


1897. 
1898. 


1900. 
1900. 


Memorial 
Article: 


1899.      Book: 


1900.      Article: 


Article: 
Sketch: 


1901.       Book: 


Social  Theory. 

Thomas  Y.  Crowell  &  Company, 
Publishers. 

Philosophical  Basis  of  the  Super- 
natural. 

The  New  World,  vol.  iv,  p.  279. 

A  Standard  of  Values. 

Quarterly  Journal  of  Economics,  vol. 
x,  p.  54. 

Evolution  and  Religion. 

G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  Publishers. 
:  Professor  Dodd. 

Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Soci- 
ology. 

The  Expositor. 

Growth  of  Nationality  in  the  United 
States. 

G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  Publishers. 

Competition,  Actual  and  Theo- 
retical. 

The  Quarterly  Journal  of  Eco- 
nomics, vol.  xiv,  p.  537. 

The  Alleged  Failure  of  Democracy. 

Yale  Review,  vol.  ix,  pp.  253-264. 

Mark  Hopkins.  Historical  Col- 
lections of  The  Berkshire 
Historical  Society,  vol.  iii. 

God  and  His  Goodness. 

G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  Publishers. 


John  Bascom 


225 


1901.  Address: 

1902.  Article: 
1902.  Article: 
1902-3.  Article: 

1902.  Address: 

1903.  Article: 

1904.  Article: 
1904.  Article: 

1904.  Sermon: 

1905.  Article: 
1905.  Sermon: 
1905.  Article: 


Phi  Beta  Kappa. 
University  of  Wisconsin. 
The  Supernatural. 
Bibliotheca,  vol.  lix,  pp.  238-253. 
Constitutional  Interpretation. 
Yale  Review,  vol.  x,  p.  350. 
Changes  in  College  Life. 
Atlantic,  vol.  xci,  p.  749. 
True  Force  of  Education. 
Semi-centennial,  Wisconsin. 
Teachers'  Association. 
Free  Press  Proceedings. 
Is  the  World  Spiritual? 
Bibliotheca,  vol.  Ix,  pp.  223-243. 
The  Addenda  of  Psychology. 
Bibliotheca,  vol.  Ixi,  pp.  209-231. 
The  Right  to  Labor. 
Quarterly  Journal  of  Economics,  vol. 

xviii,  p.  492. 
Wisdom  by  Growth  and  Growth 

in      Wisdom.       Baccalaureate. 

University  of  Wisconsin. 
Social     Basis     of    the     Ministry. 

Presbyterian  Review. 
Baccalaureate  at  the  University  of 
Wisconsin. 

Open  vs.  Closed  Shop. 
North      American     Review,     vol. 

clxxx,  pp.  912-917. 


226  Addresses  and  Published  Writings  of 


1905.      Article:      Economics  and  Ethics. 

Bibliotheca,  vol.  Ixii,  pp.  211-228. 

1905.  Article:      Railroad  Rates. 

Yale  Review,  vol.  xiv,  pp.  237-259. 

1906.  Article:      Causes  and  Reasons. 

Bibliotheca,  vol.  Ixiii,  pp.  125-149. 
1906.      Article:      Unemployed  in  London. 

Bibliotheca,  vol.  Ixiii,  pp.  335-351. 
1906.       Article:       Industrial  Corporations. 

Moody' s  Magazine,  vol.  i,  pp.  401- 

407. 

The  Amendments. 
Annals  of  the  American  Academy 
of  Political  and  Social  Science, 
vol.  xxvii,  pp.  597-609. 
Reconciliations  of  Instruction. 
Address  at  Normal  School,  North 

Adams,  Massachusetts. 
1906.      Article:       Debate  on  Railroad  Bill. 

Moody' s  Magazine. 

1906.      Paper:        Prof.   Perry,  Berkshire  Historical 
Society. 

1906.  Paper:        Greylock   Reservation,    Berkshire 

Historical  Society. 

1907.  Article:      Watered  Stock. 

Moody' s  Magazine. 
1907.       Sermon:     Divine  Giving. 

Williamstown,  Massachusetts. 
Published  by  request. 


1906.     Article: 


1906.      Address: 


John  Bascom 


227 


1907.       Article: 


1907. 
1907. 

1907. 
1907. 

1908. 
1908. 

1909. 
1909. 
1909. 
1909. 

1910. 
1910. 


Pamphlet 
Article: 

Article : 
Article : 

Article : 
Article : 

Article : 
Article : 
Article : 
Article : 

Article : 
Article : 


Esthetics  and  Ethics. 
Bibliotheca,    vol.     Ixiv,    pp.    33- 

50. 
;  College  Tax  Exemption. 

Is  Language  a  Living  Thing? 

Pedagogical  Seminary. 

Industrial  Corporations. 

Moody' s  Magazine. 

American  Higher  Education. 

Educational  Review,  vol.  xxxiv,  pp. 
130-143. 

Dr.  Hickox. 

Journal  of  Psychology. 

Coeducation  in  College  Training. 

Educational  Review,  vol.  xxxvi,  pp. 
442-452. 

Immortality. 

Bibliotheca,  vol.  Ixvi,  pp.  1-14. 

College  Library.    Educational  Re- 
view, vol.  xxxviii,  pp.  139-149. 

The  Unemployed. 

La  Salle  Exemption  University. 

College  Optimism. 

Williams   Alumni  Review,  vol.  i, 
No.  4,  pp.  6-10. 

Difficulties  of  Faith. 

Bibliotheca,  vol.  Ixvii,  pp.  1-19 

Stocks. 

Moody' s  Magazine. 


228          Writings  of  John  Bascom 

1910.      Article:      College  Library. 

Williams  Alumni  Review,  vol.  ii, 

No.  2,  pp.  7-15. 
1910.      Article:      Athletics. 

Williams  Alumni  Review,  vol.  ii, 
No.  4,  pp.  6-14. 

1910.  Address:     Reason  and  Religion. 

Coffee  Club  Papers. 

1911.  Article:      Basis  of  Theism. 

Bibliotheca,    vol.  Ixviii,  pp.    132- 

153- 
1911.      Article:      As  One  Whole. 

Bibliotheca,    vol.  Ixviii,  pp.  627- 

640. 
1913.       Book:        Sermons  and  Addresses. 

G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  Publishers. 


